Lydia

6am meetings. I have always hated them and I have always believed that I am too junior to be sitting in them. People who get paid the real money are the people who are paid to sit in such meetings. I’m just a specialist. I have no business being here.

The meeting is virtual and the big guns are preparing for a meeting with my man. It amazes me how scared they are of him. Thomas is such a teddy bear. All he asks is for people to do what they get paid to do. When he wants answers, he wants them with immediate effect. He and I living together and being in this relationship gives him insight on what happens on the ground. Sometimes he just keeps quiet about it, but sometimes he gets annoyed. While he appreciates that his staff works hard and at basically any time of the day, I am also his girlfriend and we have a small baby who needs my attention. It doesn’t sit well with him that I leave the bed so early and that I half attend to my daughter when breastfeeding her because I am busy attending meetings. He shits on me, but I’m in a tight position. If I become more of his partner than his employee, Palesa will performance manage me out of the company. That one and power equals a dangerous combination. If he starts shitting on people at work and behaving like a controlling boyfriend who demands what work I should and shouldn’t do, he would be unprofessional then the complaints would compromise him.

Now, he is an absolute demon to work with and people are even more scared of him. Good work no longer impresses him, so the aim now is to not have a single mistake on a slide, not even a comma in the wrong place.

Palesa wraps up the meeting at 7:30am and my mom has already arrived to look after Rofhiwa. She has clearly appointed herself as the nanny. We chat a bit about me being back at work and her resigning from her job. Thomas inserts his five cents comments about me working too much and not being present enoughfor Rofhiwa. Sometimes, I feel as if he implies that I am a bad mother and I don’t appreciate it. I will address it when the time is right though, maybe on our drive to work today. My mom doesn’t say much, she just takes Rofhiwa from me and I go take a shower.

Thomas and I decide to shower together because, according to the explanation that we give my mother, we are saving water and time. According to the truth, we love shower hour in our house. The first thing I do is go on my knees and start blowing on him. I need to get him in a good mood because the meeting he will be walking into will have some bad news. He does not reject me. He lets me please him. His hands are on my weave, holding on as his knees become weaker. He shoots in my mouth and collapses to the floor of the shower. He catches his breath and smiles at me as the water hits us from the showerhead.

“Good morning, handsome”.

“Hello beautiful. How are you, my love?”

“I’m alright.”

“You sure?”

I nod my head.

“How was your meeting this morning?” He asks me.

I sigh and say, “You are not going to be happy with some of the numbers.”

He slightly frowns.

“Baby”, him.

I look at him.

“Do you think we made a mistake by appointing Palesa as a managing executive? Do you think she’s ready?” He asks me.

Am I not just a specialist? How am I being asked to review the performance of a managing executive?

“She’s not coping. Thami and Mthunzi are honestly good soldiers. I can rely on them. When one of them are away, the company feels it. She struggles to cover my other MEs when the need arises.”

“To be fair, Mthunzi and Thami are directors. This is an unfair comparison. You just mad that she has your girlfriend out of bed so early in the morning.” I defend Palesa because shame, she likes me now.

“As your boyfriend, yes, I’m not happy about that. As the CEO, I am bothered that my ME is this dependent on a specialist. It is extremely concerning. Mthunzi was also telling me that she still struggles with some of her work. He wanted to test her and give her his designation of authority while he went on paternity leave, but he didn’t want to set the company up for failure like that. Mthunzi is not much of a complainer. He took in Portia for crying out loud and he still approved for her to go to that clinic of hers for the mentally disturbed.”

The way he says this is –

But I get his point.

“So what are you going to do? Can’t you get HR involved and get Thami to performance manage her then?” I ask him.

“We have so much work, baby. We don’t have time to be focusing on begging people to do their jobs. We have to work and we need to deliver. And from what I’ve heard, these performance things take a long time.” He says.

“But baby, you have to be fair. I don’t even think that she is aware that she is not performing as expected. She is putting in long hours and is being an even bigger cow towards people in the office. In her head, she is still the star employee.” I say.

He sighs.

“I’m thinking that I should give some of her tasks to Harry. That boy is good. He could be managing Palesa, in my opinion.” He says.

“Palesa will not take that well. You know she thinks she’s the shit.” I say.

“I’ll make him report into Thami. He and Palesa will be colleagues.”

“Are you solving the problem though, baby? You are just going to overwork one employee to avoid managing the performance of the other one?” Me.

We look at each other. His face is tensing up. I didn’t realise that this was eating up at him like this.

He cups me in his arms and takes me to bed. We have explosive morning sex. It is amazing!

We leave the house after having breakfast cooked by my mom because she has just appointed herself as our home executive. I think she is trying to save my relationship because I’m so busy at work and Thomas is a man who loves being taken care of. My mom is prepared to do anything to help me, except have sex with him. I’m cool with that. My mom would also rather it be her who cooks and takes care of Rofhi than our helpers. Thomas enjoys this.

As we drive to work, I take the opportunity to speak to Thomas. For a change, he is not on a call while we drive to work.

“Baby, do you think I am a bad mother to Rofhiwa?” I ask him.

He looks at me, analyses me before responding. Then he says, “Why are you asking me this?”

“You have insinuated that my work gets between my ability to be her mother. I took offence to that, Thomas.” I tell him. It is important that he knows.

“Lydia, you are not a bad mother. You are just not present. Rofhiwa is a baby. To you, these may be years that she will not remember when she is older. But the reality is that this is when she is most dependent on you. You first want to send her to crèche at three months and now you have your mother looking after her because you work crazy hours.”

“First of all, kids start crèche at three months – it wasn’t just going to be Rofhiwa. Secondly, I have to work, Thomas. The very company that is keeping me away from her for all these hours is a company that you lead. Working this hard benefits you and the empire that you say you are building for Rofhiwa.” I am actually upset now.

“Things have changed, baby. You need to understand that. When it was just you and me, the sexiest thing about you was you being in the office and making us a lot of money. We have a beautiful baby girl, now. We are her parents. It would mean a lot to me and to her if you are the kind of mother to her as you are an asset to the company. Sometimes, you treat her as if she is standing in the way of your career progression.”

I am deeply hurt by this and he can see it. He tries to hold my hand, but I don’t let him. I actually cry. He keeps looking at me.

“I love my child, Thomas.” I say between my sobs.

“I know baby. Just switch off when you get home and show her that. If I, the CEO, can do it, so can you.” He says.

…

Thomas

Rubbish! Absolute nonsense! They woke my girlfriend up at 6am for this SHIT?! I need Mthunzi back from that paternity leave.

“How long is paternity leave again?” I ask these people sitting in front of me and presenting rubbish.

“Two weeks, sir. But Mthunzi will only be back after a month. He took additional days”, Palesa tells me.

“He needs to come back and fire all of you. What is this? This is what you woke my girlfriend up at 6am for?” I am lashing out because really, I didn’t realise things were this bad. Lydia hinted that it’s bad, but I did not anticipate this shit being presented to me. My brothers and other board members will not be happy with this. Palesa is not a fit for this role. She is just not.

I take my things and leave this meeting. We are only fifteen minutes in and it was supposed to be a three hour meeting. I need to go make a plan before Palesa runs us to the bloody ground. Granted, she is not in sales. But product managers, product owners and product specialists report into her. How does she approve products that clearly will not be sold? She drives Lydia for countless reports instead of focusing on the products we need to sell. She is too specialized. She is not an overall manager.

I dial Mthunzi the minute I get to my office. My PA is also not at her desk. She is probably gossiping with someone. I need to get someone to run my office properly. This shit that’s happening here is unacceptable.

“Ramaru”, he answers his phone.

“You need to fire Palesa”, I say.

“Isn’t that Thami’s job?”

We both laugh.

“We have a serious problem, chief. I need you back.” I tell him.

“Let me fuck the wife and ask her properly. If she says yes, I’ll be there in an hour.” He says.

We laugh.

“Are you back from KZN already?” I ask him.

“We just got back.” He says.

“Okay. I’ll send your wife some flowers and chocolate. I need you here, chief.” I say.

“Okay. Ask no more. I’m on my way.” He says.

After we hang up, I take a walk to Thami’s office. I see him shouting at Palesa, as he should. I used to think that Pearl was too hard on her and I used to give Pearl a hard time about being so harsh with Palesa. Now I see it. And had I let Pearl just do what she needed to do with Palesa, Pearl would have fired her for me.

I walk to go find my beautiful girlfriend. She’s so smart and quite the sight for sore eyes. My PA is missing in action so for today, I am going to need my baby.

She is in Harry’s office and they are working on something. I need to talk to her. So I will be interrupting the meeting.

I stand at the door. Harry looks at me. I think he has an issue with me dating Lydia, but it is what it is.

“Sir?” Harry.

“Can I please borrow Lydia for a minute?” I say.

“Sure. We are done, anyway.” Harry says.

I turn around and leave. Lydia follows me to my office. The elevator ride to my floor, we look at each other seductively. This dress that she is wearing today is making me want her so badly. She sees me check her out and she smiles at me, giggles actually. She’s so hot. Fuck!

We get into my office and I close the door.

She sits on my couch and I sit next to her.

“You look stressed. Harry tells me it went down in the morning meeting. You walked out after fifteen minutes?” She says.

“I want to fire Palesa.” I tell her.

She gives me the look that she gave me this morning when I told her I don’t have time to performance manage her. But I do appreciate her insights. If this were Pearl, she would be marching to HR already and ensuring the exit paperwork is in place.

“She’s drowning. She’s not managing. Mthunzi is even on his way to the office to help us”, I tell her.

“What exactly is she struggling with?” She asks me.

“Everything. But more specifically, products.” I tell her.

“She’s never been good at the products work, though. That was never going to change.” She says. True. But Pearl hid that very well from me. She shat on Palesa hard enough to get her to know something about products.

“I’m going to give Harry the products stuff. I want you to help him. Please baby”, I say to her.

She nods her head. I know I may be overworking her. I must make her a senior specialist at this point. But I’d rather have my other executives suggest it. I don’t need to be accused of doing her favours because my dick ejaculates inside of her. She’s good at what she does and it’s important that she is recognized accordingly.

“Palesa can focus on reporting – it’s what she does best. We will give her another portfolio to look after to replace the products work. But if she spends one more minute on products, I will fire her.” I say.

She laughs.

“Another thing baby… my PA.”

“Is useless”, she says.

I laugh.

If Pearl were here, this PA would be long gone. She was good at getting rid of useless people.

“Please manage her for me?” I say.

She is in stitches now. I just laugh too.

“I’ve been waiting to get my hands on that girl.” She says.

Good. Now, I’ll see what kind of a leader she would make.

“Thank you, baby. For now, I need some flowers and chocolate delivered to Mthunzi‘s wife – to thank her for releasing Mthunzi during his paternity leave.” I tell her.

“That’s sweet of you, baby. Plus, I like Koena. Did I tell you we will be doing pole dancing together to lose this baby fat that you and Mthunzi have left with us?” She says.

“What?” I’m so shocked.

“Yes baby. Maybe we can even think about getting a pole in our bedroom”, she says.

Now my hands are running up her thighs.

And then…

A knock on the door.