Beefy Buns

"Again?" she complained.

"Mr. Moore just called. He wants us to pick up the litter in the parking lot and to do something else."

She descended the ladder and donned her heels again, looking lovelier than ever. She was obviously glad to have her dainty feet back on terra firma.

"What else does he want us to do, besides picking up the litter?" she asked.

I told her.

"No," she said. "I won't do it."

"Yes, you will."

"No, I won't," Mona insisted, "not even if it costs me my job."

"It might," I warned her. "Mr. Moore's parked somewhere nearby, and he's watching us."

She gave me a look that suggested I'd gone insane. "What?"

I repeated myself. "He's watching, and he expects to see you waving a sign on the street corner, advertising Beefy Buns' Beefy Burger."

"I'm not a whore," she declared, her eyes flashing, "and I'm not standing on any street corner."

"No one said you're a whore," I protested.

"I'm not doing it," she said, determination, like steel, in her refusal.

"But Mr. Moore's watching."

"He's not the only one who's been watching me, is he?" she asked frostily.

"What do you mean?"

"You think I'm blind as well as blonde?" she demanded. "I've seen you ogling me, staring at my tits and ass."

In any other context, her use of such words would have been exciting. Somehow, as we stood in the littered parking lot, next to the step ladder positioned along the back wall of Beefy Buns, Mr. Moore maybe still watching us from a distance, these terms--and the implicit charge of sexual harassment behind them--made me nervous.

Sexual harassment? Was that really where she was going with this? I wondered. "What do you mean?" I managed to blurt, affecting innocence. I even managed to sound confused and wounded, as if the thought of looking at her breasts and buttocks had never crossed my mind.