Office Christmas Party - Ch. 1 (Dec. 2024)

(Unimaginative title, I know. Whatever. Works for now. Read on.)

Office Christmas parties could either be the bane of one’s existence or a completely wild and fun time. Zach Harbor had only experienced the former. At his old job, a private chemistry lab, the annual Christmas party consisted of some 20 people in their 60’s gathering at the common area and eating chips and cheap delivery pizza. He couldn’t relate to anyone at that job, especially with his boss chatting away about his health issues or not understanding the difference between Facebook and Instagram. In his ten years working there, Zach fell into the habit of saving his remaining days off for the holiday season so that he wouldn’t have to put up with a mindlessly dull and cringe Christmas party. With all his co-workers well past their prime, he couldn’t really have a social life at all at that place.

But then the pandemic came, he was jobless for a while, and then he found himself employed at PharmaCon. PharmaCon was unlike anything else. It was a sprawling facility in the middle of a field. The facility consisted of three floors with a maze of cubicles on the second floor. The ground floor consisted of various different types of labs in an even larger maze of sprawling hallways and steps.

Zach grew up studying biology and chemistry. Grad school was too daunting though, and the road there intimidated him, especially since his undergrad teachers played favorites and didn’t offer him many opportunities. They all favored the insanely brilliant kids who were somehow able to ace every test without pulling a single all-nighter. You had to fight your way to get noticed, and if you didn’t have it in you then you were average.

Joining the work force early on had its perks. While those smart kids were still breaking their backs writing thesis after thesis, Zach was building a 401k and a portfolio. He experienced, for the first time, economic freedom.

Since he had “done his time” in the lab at his old job already, PharmaCon hired him to be a study coordinator, someone who basically wrote the reports for the pharmaceutical companies and acted as a “secretary” for the lead scientists who ran the studies. It sounded less glamorous to him than being a “scientist”, but it paid a lot more and, oddly enough, in this industry the lab analysts were seen as the entry level grunts.

While Zach didn’t necessarily need to visit the lab as a study coordinator, he often had to check the raw data paperwork for the reports, which were kept under lock and key behind a fireproof door. But even when he didn’t need to go downstairs, he tried to find excuses to go down there anyway to talk to people and shirk his duties. Mitch was a cool guy to talk to. He was fit twenty-four-year-old Asian guy fresh from college and already engaged to be married. Zach and he bonded over anime and video games. He was short but strong and had a handsome set of straight hair that everyone commented about.

But Zach really hoped to run into the girls working in the lab. When his boss Melissa gave him the tour on his first day, he couldn’t believe the number of gorgeous women who would be working there. There was Selina, fit and small with a perky ass. Taylor, tomboyish and blond and always wore band t-shirts. Purvi, a mature woman in her 40’s who had a few kids and a husband but still extremely gorgeous in that “classical” sense with long black hair and dressed nicely. Then Sneha, another short girl who was a year older than him, cute as fuck, and had the largest ass he had ever seen. For real. Zach got nervous around her all the time because of her fucking wide load of an ass that looked perfect no matter what she wore – leggings, jeans, dresses.

Working at PharmaCon made him realize how much he missed out on a social life at work since he graduated college. Working there actually felt like going to college all over again. Each analyst had their own little cubicle upstairs, though they rarely used it. When he spotted one of them sitting at their desk, he’d knock on their wall and spark a chat with them, like he was wandering the dorm halls of college again.

When a company-wide email announced the annual Christmas party on Friday the 20th, Zach was intrigued. This had been his first year working here, and with all these cool kids around maybe it was actually worth going to. When he hung out downstairs with Mitch in the lab and asked him about it, Mitch chuckled aloud at the mention of it.

“Oh man…the annual Christmas party.”

“Are you going?”

“I don’t know. I’m engaged now. Things get…” He chuckled again, as if remembering something. “Things get a little crazy.”

Zach raised a brow. “Really?”

            “Yeah, man,” Mitch said, shifting his gaze back and forth to make sure nobody was listening. They were standing at the far end of the lab at Mitch’s lab bench. “The Christmas parties here are wiiiillld. They stopped them for a couple years because a few people uhhh…” Mitch tried to find the right words but Zach knew he was trying to be careful talking about gossip in the workplace. “Let’s just say that when I went back to my desk the day after, I had to make sure to wipe it down.”

            The thing about PharmaCon was that it was open 24/7. No snowstorm or hurricane would ever really “close” it. Somebody was always working a shift at any given time, being that they housed animals to test on in the animal wing, also known as the “toxicology department”. They were the ones to dose the animals with the test drug. Mitch and his department worked on the other side of the building analyzing the blood samples that were delivered from the tox department. Supposedly, according to Mitch, many of the tox technicians with late shifts used to sleep over during the Christmas party. Things got too wild and they stopped the Christmas party for a while.

            “Shit,” Zach said, pretending to sound disgusted but secretly imagining what wild sex-craved depravity must have happened in those cubicles upstairs.

            “Yeah…” Mitch seemed like he wanted to say more but he instead kept chuckled awkwardly. Zach couldn’t gauge whether Mitch also found it hot or was truly disgusted. In fact, Zach wondered if Mitch himself participated in any crazy activities during those parties. He was, after all, highly sought after with the other girls in other departments. Zach suspected he was a cheater, judging by his casual flirtations with the other analysts in the lab and other departments. He knew Mitch had his eye on Selina in particular, always making her laugh and staring at her ass whenever she walked by. He wasn’t subtle about it at all.

            Everyone attending the party had to bring food or drink or utensils. People logged it into a spreadsheet shared over Microsoft Teams. Zach was the first to write his name on the list as getting soda. He wanted to make sure he got that down so that…well…so that he could be in control of the soda in hopes that maybe, possibly, perchance, something could happen between him and one of the girls and they could burp for him. If these Christmas parties were as crazy as Mitch suggested, then anything could happen, right?

            PharmaCon had two dining areas, the cafeteria downstairs and an atrium near his cubicle on the second floor. He ate his lunch, typically alone, in that central atrium where the sun shone through the ceiling windows and a few potted plants decorated the corners. The atrium looked like it once thrived decades ago in the style of 80’s and 90’s big businesses, but was now a bit worn and forgotten. Mitch said the atrium used to have a fountain in the center against the wall. Now there were just vending machines. Nobody really ate there, as they typically ate at their desks working at the same time.

            By the end of that year, Zach had become accustomed to the faces of the people who passed by, other administrators he never worked with and the janitors. The lab analysts unfortunately never ate upstairs. Because their schedules were so demanding, they either skipped lunch altogether or had their lunch right there in the office outside the lab. Zach had seen a couple people have lunch together, and he awkwardly tried asking Sneha (GOD, THAT FATASS) if she wanted to have lunch, but she was far too busy that day and then never followed up with another time.

            Zach had thought he had seen all the pretty women the site had to offer. But less than a week before the Christmas party, he caught a swish of a long curtain of brown hair hurrying down the hallway across from him. The person disappeared around the corner. Zach’s heart leaped because he imagined the person to be stunning. From that split-second glimpse, he thought he saw a woman dressed in a tight business suit – blazer and all. He thought he saw an amazing ass.

            Zach put down his lunch and looked around, wondering if anyone was watching. He then cautiously got up and peeked around the corner of the hallway.

            There standing in the doorway of another office was a woman he never saw before. She was the most graceful, gorgeous woman he had ever seen. She was taller than him, and wore a matching blazer and pants that looked fantastic on her. The whole outfit had this golden checkerboard pattern that made her look the definition of professional. She was talking to a lead scientist in their doorway and so her face wasn’t yet turned to him. But he stared longingly at her ass – two amazing round cheeks jutting out in those tight pants. He could practically feel their curves fitting perfectly in the palm of his hand.

            “My god…” he let slip.

            The woman ended her conversation with the lead scientist and turned to go back to her office. Her face was to die for. She had an ambiguous skin tone with dark eyes and a prim appearance. She smiled gently at him as she passed by – that simple obligatory smile all co-workers give when passing each other in the hallway, even if they don’t know each other.

            Zach smiled back and took five seconds before turning his head around to look back at her. Her office was the first door by the stairwell that led down to the lab.

            The nametag on the door to the office read “JEANINE KING”.

            Zach returned to his lunch but couldn’t stop thinking about her. This woman took the cake. Forget Selina, Taylor, anyone else. This mysterious woman took his undivided attention. She was graceful but walked with an air of tough professionalism, someone who made her way in her career. Such a simple five-second interaction occupied his mind the entire day and more.

            Who the hell was she?

#

            While shirking work again, Zach talked to Mitch and Taylor late in the day while most of the people had already gone home. While talking about previous parties, Zach managed to let slip, “Hey is there a new person working here? Someone named Jeanine?”

            Taylor shrugged but Mitch said, “Oh, nah, she’s been here a while.”

            “Ah, okay.”

            Zach was worried the silence would make things awkward. He cleared his throat and added, “Just noticed her the other day and didn’t recognize her.”

            “She’s the director of the toxicology department. She used to not come here so often because of the pandemic but now that it’s been like – what – three years or something she’s starting to come into the office more often.”

            “The—the DIRECTOR of the toxicology department?” Zach said, incredulous. He hadn’t expected someone who looked so young to be a director at a science lab like theirs. Usually, they were older people in their 70s and 80s. The director of the entire site, his boss, was a 68-year-old woman named Melissa who smoked heavily and wasn’t the least bit attractive to Zach. His former boss at his old job was a 75-year-old dude who had long since let himself go.

            Taylor said, “She worked up really fast. She’s like SUPER smart.” Taylor’s voice had this sexy raspiness to it. Zach tried hard not to stare at her too much whenever she spoke.

            Zach nodded and mumbled “Oh, cool.” He had so many other questions but didn’t want to give anything away that he was interested in her, especially since she was considered a superior to them.

            The door opened and a girl from the immunochemistry department that Zach recognized entered. She was short, black, and always had a smile whenever she entered their lab – because she always wanted to talk to Mitch. Zach and Taylor stood there awkwardly in silence as the girl asked Mitch a question about a form, and then promptly left.

            Taylor shook her head and said, “Mitch, she knows you’re ENGAGED, right?”

            He shrugged innocently. “Yeah. Why?”

            “She DOES NOT need to walk all the way here to ask stupid questions. Her supervisor knows them. She literally goes out of her way to talk to you. You have to tell her something.”

            Mitch grimaced. “No, I don’t. She’s not stupid. I’m not doing anything. That’s her problem. If she can’t get over her fantasies that’s her problem.”

            Taylor sighed disapprovingly. “Mitch…”

            Zach did find it kind of fucked up, especially since Mitch once talked about the latest James Bond film and said aloud, “I would totally marry Ana de Armas if she were single.” Of course, one can always have a celebrity crush, but Zach found it…awkward that he phrased it like that knowing he was planning a wedding with his fiancée.

            Zach figured he had shirked his duties long enough and should respond to some emails before calling it a day. He walked back up to his cubicle. The second floor was mostly empty by now around 5PM. Poor Taylor and Mitch would be left still analyzing blood samples until 6PM. Zach didn’t want to stay that long. He made sure his tasks were done for the day and packed up to leave. Along the way to the employee exit, he ran into her again – Jeanine.

            She was heading in the direction of his cubicle, and when they ran into each other she went “Oh!” with wide eyes. Then she spoke to him – actually spoke to him.

            “Funny, I was actually going to try to find you.”

            Me? What for?

            “Oh…” Zach said. “What’s up?”

            “I just noticed I’ve never seen you around before. Are you Zach?”

            “Yeah.”

            “Pleasure to meet you. Jeanine. I’m the director of the tox department. I just wanted to say hi since I think you were a relatively new hire and I’ve been hybrid here and there.”

            “Yeah, yeah. I replaced Ellie after she left.”

            “Good, good.” Zach’s heart could have exploded as he gazed longingly at Jeanine. Her smile made him melt. “Well…” she said, as if indicating there was nothing more to discuss. “See you around then!”

            “Yeah! Goodnight!”

            Damn. I wish we could have talked for much longer…

            Zach gripped the strap of his backpack. He turned around and said, “H-hey, you’re going to the Christmas party, right?”

            Jeanine turned around. She blinked a couple times as if processing what he asked. He had a sinking feeling she would say no. Maybe she was married. A woman like that was probably taken already. But she lit up and said, “Yes, of course!”

            “Cool!”

            Zach headed back to the exit, heart pounding.