Cupid's Contract

When Eve Stalked Adam

The next morning, Eve couldn't shake the optimistic feeling that permeated her entire being from the moment she opened her sleepy eyes.

She had the vague inkling that her slumber had been turbulent but the only echo of such suspicions was in the tenderness of her rump as she got out of bed.

Having crashed at her mother's after dinner that night, she had to resort to either wearing her dirty clothes from the day before or scrounging an outfit from her mother's closet. While Barbara's style was a bit more colourful than Eve's usual monochromatic uniform for work, it was better than showing up smelling of yesterday's disappointment.

Tugging at the vibrant pink skirt, she nursed her usual morning latte as she scrolled through the emails that had accumulated since yesterday evening. There was the usual amount of spam mail which she happily deleted. It wasn't uncommon for there to be a few complaint emails from an anonymous sender. An initiative started a few years ago, it was an opportunity for employees to vent without worrying about recrimination. It was a lovely idea in theory, but it was often abused by employees with nothing better to do than judge and whinge.

Eve had been at the HR job long enough that she had begun to recognise which complaints came from which anonymous repeat-complainer, and it was almost a game some mornings, trying to figure out who was annoyed by what this time. Eve had begun to fancy herself as a lame Inspector Clueso, and each anonymous email an even lamer mystery.

There was more than a few emails regarding the presence of fish in the staff fridge, and a particularly sour one regarding the presence of flowers on staff desks and receiving deliveries at work. Eve didn't bother responding to what was surely a sly dig from Polly. She had gotten quite used to Polly's passive aggressive emails where she anonymously belittled Eve and other female employees. Why she couldn't disagree with the first comment on flowers, as it was quite unusual to have a foot-long 'Condolences Planter' at your workstation, this was a bitter repartee rather than a genuine enforceable complaint. There was something inherently evil about a female who didn't support other women in the workplace, but without the direct trail to connect Polly to the complaints there was little Eve could say or do to impress upon her coworker the importance of sisterhood.

Besides, Eve had enough on her plate. If her current life was a buffet, she was the guy who had stockpiled three plates of food, building his own tower of chicken wings and beef patties rather than waste time returning to the buffet once he cleared one plate. She didn't have the energy nor the time to explain that if women didn't stand up for themselves, nobody else would either. A card carrying member of the Feminist Fight Club, (even if the card was handmade and sellotape'd rather than actually laminated, a minor discrepancy that surely Jessica Bennett would excuse), Eve had tried to make a point of embracing all females in the workplace, a behaviour encouraged by the misogynistic environment at Harper's House.

As part of HR, she was often included in discussions of promotions, and she always made a point of recommending females for positions that they were overlooked for, despite being equally qualified. She had pointed out to payroll more than once that certain members of staff received discrepant salaries despite the same skills and workload, and she had been a staunch supporter of bright work clothes and red lipstick. But Harpers had worn her down in the end. Like the rest of the women, she had eventually slid into monochromatic suits and barely-there eyeliner. She may have surrendered her pretty accessories but she was the bee in many masculine bonnets as she pestered for more female department heads such as Veronica. She suspected it was one of the reasons why she had yet to secure an official promotion herself, despite the nominated placeholder for HR being many oceans away with no sign of return.