The Spiked Heel

“I suppose it can be,” McQuade said. He walked over to the windows and looked out over the surrounding rooftops. She wondered what time it was, and glanced at her watch swiftly. Three-thirty. Romeo and Juliet would have gone back to work long ago. She found herself sighing with relief, and she wondered abruptly if she were really thankful for McQuade’s presence. There was something frightening about him, oh, not his power, not that, so he was from Titanic, so what, that had nothing whatever to do with it. If Titanic didn’t like the way she worked, they could fire her. She’d certainly have no trouble getting a job elsewhere. But there was something too masculine about him, something animalistic almost, something almost supernaturally animal, like a prime gorilla specimen. She could visualize him in a museum someplace, tagged like the other animals as a superexample of Homo sapiens. And this was what frightened her. She had never known anyone quite so handsome. The other men she’d known had all possessed their own personal flaws, but she searched in vain for a flaw in McQuade’s physical appearance. However, this perfection — rather than elevating him above other men, as a man among lesser men — had somehow lowered him to the status of animal, pure animal. He was the golden dream of every adolescent American girl, bulging with impossible muscles, grinning with impossible smiles. She could smell manhood on him. She could smell masculinity, the way a cow in heat can smell a bull, and in much the same way the smell frightened her. He was too much a man, and so he had been labeled with scientific precision: Gorilla. Ox. Man.

She did not pretend that he was unstimulating. The first time he had walked into the office, she had been completely overwhelmed. That first day — she could still remember it clearly — she had involuntarily lifted her skirts for him, showing her legs, pretending she was worried about a run, but not pretending the way she did with Aaron and Griff, pretending in a compulsive way, a startling reflexive way that urged her to lift her skirts, forced her to show her legs to this superior being. She had been ashamed immediately afterward, but she could still remember the way she wiggled her backside on the way out of the office, even with the shame still upon her, even then, as if she had to show this man that somehow she too possessed a beauty, as if she were offering her very small beauty before the shining altar of his magnificent splendor.

He had not seemed to notice. She knew there were many men who only pretended indifference, but she suspected McQuade’s attitude was not a pose.

She had diligently fought the compulsion ever since. When McQuade was in the office, the skirts of Marge Gannon were tucked demurely about her legs. She sat upon them like a prim spinster. But she could not kid herself into thinking the compulsion was not there. She was always aware of him physically, aware in a painfully curious female way, mystified by her own chemical reaction to his maleness.

“I’ve heard fantastic things about our neighboring rooftops,” McQuade said drily.

“Have you?” she said. She automatically tucked her skirts tighter under her, and then began typing.

“Yes.” He dismissed the topic with that single word and turned from the windows. “So what is our pretty little typist working on today?” he asked; smiling.

“Toil, toil, labor and toil,” she chanted. In truth, she hadn’t been working on a hell of a lot since long before lunchtime.

“I’ve always envied people who could type,” McQuade said. “The typewriter will always be a maliciously complex instrument, as far as I’m concerned.”

“Can’t you type?” Marge asked.

McQuade shook his head. “I should learn, I know.” He paused. “What are you doing hidden away in this malodorous factory, anyway, Marge?” he asked.

“I don’t know what you mean, Mr. McQuade,” she said archly. She was aware that her foot had begun swinging under her desk. She did not stop its swing.

“You’re too pretty for this smelly dump,” he said vehemently.

He surprised her. She had honestly believed she’d made no more impression upon him than one of the desks. Faced with the newly gained knowledge that he had noticed her, the old panic returned, and with it a strange sort of excitement flowed through her veins. She swung her chair around, her foot swinging. She wore a gold ankle bracelet, and it caught the rays of the sun now, reflecting dizzily.

“Why, thank you,” she said. Her hand dropped to her skirt. She fought to put her hand back on the desk top, but it would not obey the command of her mind.

“You should quit,” he said. His eyes dropped to the swinging foot. “You should use those legs for modeling stockings or something.”