Colonel Seeders' Mail Order Bride, Hank

2 Rachelle

It's called concealer and yet she's touched the dispensing device to her troat three times and it still would not conceal the marks. She quickly changed clothes.

Rachelle Spencer stared at her reflection in the mirror. Her white, wool dress hid her neck, but fit a little loose around her awkwardly shaped body. It still looked professional enough with her slightly faded, black blazer that she would wear for her interview that afternoon.

The blazer also served to cover her oversized chest. She tried to hide it daily from all the leering eyes of the men she worked with.

One more pin went into her already perfect bun, just to make sure that her brown curls wouldn't escape before she walked away from her interview that afternoon.

Plasters covered the blisters on her two smallest toes. She squeezed her feet into the cheap black pumps that she had only worn once before, her very first interview at Space station GNT54-B12 five years ago and they still looked brand new after she dusted them off. In those five years, she made them notice her and notice her they did.

Within the first three years they pushed her up through the ranks to Senior data annalist - They did not really have a name for her position, since the position did not exist before they offered it to her and they could not fire Robert to give her the managers position, even though she did his job for him. They never did confirm why they couldn't fire him, though she suspected his wife's political career had something to do with it.

Her life could be so much easier if only they gave her his job, financially and emotionally. Physically too, if her sleeping and eating patterns were taken in account.

It all came to a halt once Robert Frebasch, her boss, took an interest in her. Two years of his unwelcome attention that she could not shake. Her threats to report him fell on deaf ears. He mentioned her need for the job more than once and countered with his own threats to get her fired.

She sighed heavily as she looked around her single room with its tiny bathroom that only had enough space for a retractable shower and toilet.

She tidied her single bed, placed all of her dirty washing into a small basket near the bathroom door and took her only plate and cup to the small plastic tub next to the micro-gamma ray oven that came with the living space. The small dresser it stood on made up her whole kitchen.

Straightening her spine, she gave her reflection in the full length mirror on her furthest wall a nod, tucked her silver locket behind her clothes, and then stepped out the door to head down the hall to the elevator that would take her to the beta-division and her small desk, right outside of Robert's office.

"Go in, tell him you have been called to an urgent meeting and then leave. Do not hang around. Do not make eye contact. Just leave," she told her multiple reflections in the empty elevator.

If only it would be that easy. Why did she have to be the one he took a sick, twisted fancy too? She still had bruises from the last time he tried to grope her.

Maybe she could sneak out before he noticed her. If she got the job... When she got the job she would never have to see his fat bald head and large sweaty stomach ever again. A few hours of uncomfortable silence during her last shift wouldn't be that bad.

Unless he found out about her interview and tried to stall her so that she missed it, which meant she would be stuck doing his work until she could find a way to leave the planet, or died from working more hours than any normal person could handle.

As she stepped out of the elevator into the stuffy, silent confines of the open office floor, she craved the fresh air on the roof where she had taken the few plants her cousin gave her for her last birthday. People sat like robots, typing away at keyboards in their tiny cubicles, like her, trying not to be noticed, but unlike her, they succeeded.

She meant to sneak passed Robert's office, hoping she could get to the elevators on the opposite side before anyone noticed her, but he stood at the open doorway, waiting for her, sneering at her in that disgusting way he found attractive. Why didn't she think to get off on the next floor instead?

"Joo be late. Joo be here one hour past. I be goin' to meetin' in turty minute. Joo be done wit me report? Me be needin' him now."

She still could not get used to the way his whole face wobbled when he croaked out his words, and unless she missed his request for her to come in early, she actually had an hour before her shift started at two pm. She only left at ten am because of that stupid report that he could have compiled himself and they did not pay for over time.

Just tell him where it is and leave, the little voice in her head said.

"I set it on your desk as soon as I finished it. I also have a meeting and I'm late. I'll be back in time for my shift."

Walk away. Just walk away. Run if you must.

"Joo can't be leavin' now. Joo be late already. Joo be showin' me where be my report. Me can't be findin' it. If me be loosin' me job, joo be loosin' jooz job too," he shouted in his deep voice. One of his fat sausage fingers pointed towards his desk.

He found out. He knew about the interview and now he would stall her so that she could not make her interview. Why could she not get a break? Would God ever stop punishing her for her selfish behaviour? She only did it to make them proud, like she had been asked to do.

Should she make a run for it? Would he try to get her fired before she had a chance to speak to anyone? Maybe she should just hand him the document, pretend to go back to her desk and then sneak away. She still had twenty minutes before she was meant to meet Mrs. Fullester. He would need to leave in ten minutes if he intended to make it to his own meeting in the west wing - as they called it - of the space station. She needed to make that interview.