The Spider and the Fly

[phantome71]

Hopefully the ladies might like this one? http://www.literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?id=43361

 

[Sanichi]

Hopefully the ladies might like this one?

Unless one was the kind of lady that wanted a gentleman to take her to dinner and choose from the menu for her, then hopefully is about right - I'm not exactly up-to-date with this modern world sexual politics in the workplace thing, but the attitudes on display here are antediluvian. I'm hearing the voice of Leslie Phillips! I don't know how things go down in Canada, but you have a UK parent company, and there have been headline lawsuits in the City over a lot less than sexist remarks and sly groping. You might set the tale in the 1960's if you want that?

I can't comment on the story because there isn't anything to it: [SPOILER ALERT] a new manager arrives at an office where a younger woman flirts. [END SPOILER - That's it!] Perhaps as an introduction to a series it might do, although it could be a lot shorter. Content aside, I'd be concerned about grammar and style.

The flow is sometimes disjointed, where spoken parts are absorbed into descriptive paragraphs, along with internal thoughts and observations.

I am allowed to admire you, he said, with a twinkle in his eye. Not too sexist I hope?

Gloria smiled sweetly at him. Of course you are Mike. She enjoyed his company and decided that she would have some fun with her new boss.

You have a habit of summarising the gist of one of the speakers interspersed with quoted dialogue.

Mike Mitchell listened patiently to all this and then said, "yes I can well see why you are just about sick of all that."

"Well, I have been called in to try and sort things out and I can tell you that the present manager will be leaving." Gloria, who had been a target of this pest said that it could only be a good thing for him to go.

These techniques might work if you showed consistency. Otherwise, give each spoken section its own paragraph, and put all dialogue in quotes. An editor could help with this. Work on the story.

Opening line:

Gloria had just about had her fill of the Company for whom she had worked for the last five years.

It's which not whom, but the sentence needs rearranging to bring it some life: "After five years with the company, Gloria had her fill." The focus is on the woman and her attitude, not on the Company or length of service.

"Pleased to meet you," he said. "My name's Mike Mitchell."

"Please to meet you Mr. Mitchell," said Gloria. "My name is Gloria Reader."

Not yours more than others, but often writers want to attribute every spoken passage ("he said" and "said Gloria"). Here you can safely leave them out. You might as well say "They exchanged greetings" because those are social pleasantries. More of a concern is that the exchange is dull and unnecessary. For your story you could make even this formal exchange establish character. He wouldn't say "Pleased to meet you," it's his job. Gloria is hardly pleased to meet him because she has been summoned to the office. They aren't there for a cocktail chat. You can quickly establish their relative status, and set your story up, if he only gives his name and motions her to sit, or if he waves away the stiffness and asks her to call him Mike. Your version tells the reader nothing but their surnames.

You variously refer to him as Mr. Mitchell, Mike Mitchell, and Mike. After the point where he drops the formality, use Mike.

"In what way," he asked?

Again you don't need the attribution since there are only the two of them exchanging conversation, but for punctuation it would be: "In what way?" he asked.

At one moment Gloria is on the verge of quitting because of sexist behavior, and next thing she is wearing too-small blouses and flaunting herself. It's a sex story and a fantasy, so I wouldn't have any problem if she suddenly decided the aircon was too hot and stripped off, but what is the point of this? It seems you have a low opinion of women in the workplace if you believe they spend any amount of time at all on "subtle feminine tricks" such as framing themselves against the light in a thin dress just because they fancy the boss. Again, you might have in mind a parody of Mad Men.

You could have Mike as the straitlaced manager sent to impose disciplinary order, expertly seduced. with his "grey eyes which often blatantly undressed her" I'm seeing him as a lecherous old man. If he really is cursing the fact that he may be able to "look but mustn't touch", he's in the wrong job. Or simply drop all the sexist troubleshooter malarky and let them have at it. Gloria has no present boyfriend, and all that is stopping Mike is his constant worry he's too old for her.

It might be interesting if you had the saucy sexpot and the repressed older man suffering under a strict regime that proscribed office flirtation. The hitherto innocent flashes of bra or stocking tops, the helping on and off with coats, and the whiff of Chanel No. 5 will rise to a new level of eroticism. As it is, this seems a humdrum office dalliance between very one-dimensional characters.

"I just love those gorgeous black knickers you are wearing today!"

Textbook sexist commentary, m'Lud. I must agree, and find in favour of the plaintiff. He scalds her with hot coffee, and that's another suit right there, before he thrusts his hands up her skirt?

I don't want to sound too hard when it reads as a bit of harmless fun, but you have a number of stories posted and should want more than this. Any writer should root out niggling grammar mistakes, such as fair-minded, and "Mike and her" would be "she and Mike", but again these could be caught by an editor. I would address the lack of story, which is not much more than two people dancing around their attraction for one another. There is nothing wrong in that but it leads to no more than a hand in the knickers before: "Time for bed..." And hopefully that's going to be a more interesting place?

 

[elfin_odalisque]

Phantome, don't be silly.

Your comment 'Hopefully the ladies might like this one' just proves that sanichi treated you gently. Her critique was spot on but missed the great lacune in your story.

You write from a previous century, where gender equality and the extinction of secretarial posts didn't exist.

I'm no raving feminist but your prose and condescension about the female sex goes beyond neanderthal. I know males find it hard to accept they are slowly becoming the worker drones but your unjustified machismo is just a last hurrah.