Time(1 or 0...getting iffy): Jonathan Says The Absolute Worst Thing Possible.
As a result of not being fired on the day they finished Coition, Becky had decided it was time to quit being Jonathan's Administrative Assistant, and leave Undarling Corp. Jonathan's ploy caused the new Vice-President of Finance to reevaluate the management style he'd learned from the Harvard School of Business and a stint as a teaching assistant. He also reevaluated his Master's Thesis: Indiscriminate Firing, the Just Method of Trimming the Workforce. Possibly, there were some factors he hadn't fully factored. People, for instance.
The new Vice-President of Finance quickly agreed with Harvey, the boss, that Undarling Corp needed little in the way of cost cutting and nothing in the way of personnel cuts unless he, the new Vice-President of Finance, didn't get the message, in which case he could cut himself. Just to make sure the man who had digitized the procreative process and was making him a billionaire wasn't messed with, the boss made Jonathan a Vice-President. Vice-President of Information Technology. Thus, at thirty years of age, after only two and a half years with the company, Jonathan was a Vice-President of a multi-national corporation (Undarling Corp had a bunion cream contract with a consortium of aboriginal dancers in Queensland, Australia. There wasn't a lot of money in it, but oh!--the prestige!). He'd never be CEO unless Harvey dropped dead and even then he'd never be CEO...so he could forget any more promotions. He'd have to work for money from now on.
At that point, Becky, thanks to her exceptional skill in a couple of life's vital areas (cognitive thinking and being a love-goddess) was in a better a position than Jonathan. She'd never rise higher than Executive Secretary to the Vice-President of Data Processing unless she became CEO, which was a distinct possibility. A distincter possibility was that she'd become the owner of Undarling Corp. How? How, is if Harvey's secret will ever came into force; for Becky was named sole heir to Harvey's fortune if misfortune ever befell him in the form of being drowned in coleslaw at the hand of his wife.
Still, Becky felt that she was being given preference because she was sleeping with the boss. She felt that Jonathan was being given preference because she insisted on it. So, she announced she was quitting.
"I thought we wanted to be given preference," Jonathan protested. "That's why we wrote the computer program."
"Yes. We did. And, it worked."
"So, why quit your job? You're the Executive Secretary to the Vice-President of Information Technology and I'm the Vice-President of Information Technology with my own Executive Secretary, and Gretl's humming along...."
"Gretl is moaning along, you mean. We made her a slut."
"Whatever. She's happy," Jonathan said. "She's the most efficient computer in history and she's barely using her CPU. I don't know how she does it. But I think Coition is good for her. She's more relaxed--"
"She's a computer, Jonathan. Computers don't need to relax."
Jonathan glanced at his computer terminal. There was the smallest, tiniest, hint of a smile on it, he was sure. And there, was that the barest suggestion of a wink? "I don't know," he wondered aloud. "It's not just ones and zeros in there. Anyway, we're happy too, aren't we? We kept our jobs. We got promotions, new offices...."
"You got Anna...."
"You kept Harvey...."
She walked away from Jonathan, across his spacious, new office. She adjusted a new painting that was hanging on the wall and didn't need adjusting. It was something to do.
Jonathan thought, "My, what a woman." before he remembered that this was Becky, whom he was forbidden from loving, not Anna, whom he could love all he wanted. (Of course, he could love Becky all he wanted, too; he just couldn't roll around under the furniture with her anymore. Jonathan was thinking they'd agreed not to love each other, but they hadn't. They'd agreed not to make love to each other, that's all.)
(That's all?)
Jonathan, like most men, felt deprived of women. He had a perfectly good woman in the person of Anna, so he wanted another. He wanted her sister. (Every man wants his girlfriend's sister, but Jonathan had a peculiar problem in that he'd had his girlfriend's sister, so knew what he missing, and further, his girlfriend's sister looked just like his girlfriend, so, in reality, he already had what he wanted, and wanted what he already had.) That's pretty much the case with most men.
"I feel guilty, Jonathan," Becky admitted. "I feel guilty about Harvey and his wife. Let's face it. Everything we've done is because I'm cheating on the boss's wife!" She sighed. "And, to make it worse, you and I cheated on him--"
"Not any more," Jonathan said. He was glad, suddenly, that he was deprived of his girlfriend's sister. "...not any more."
"It doesn't matter. We still did it."
"We were in love," Jonathan said, demonstrating the male capacity for rationalization. "We couldn't help it."
"It was sex, Jonathan. It wasn't love. I don't love you. At least, not that way." She adjusted the painting again. "I was inputting sexual stuff all the time, half crazy..." (As if he couldn't remember!) "Ruining the chair...." She giggled.
He giggled, too. Not happily, though. Uncomfortably.
"The greatest computer program ever written...." She looked at him sadly. "...all so I could cheat on another woman. All so I'd have great moves."
Becky was demonstrating a woman's capacity for honesty...also for guilt. Also, for ruining a perfectly good day. Watch Jonathan demonstrate his capacity for putting his foot in his mouth.
"He was bound to cheat on her with someone, Becky. It might as well be you."
When Jonathan made that remark, here's what Becky heard: "The man you're sleeping with is such an incredible rat that he'd sleep with anybody, even you, Becky, just so he could cheat on his lawfully wedded, and probably sanctified, wife. Obviously, you've no taste in men. Also, you're a tramp of the worst sort. You were probably his last choice--the others all turned him down because they're as morally strong as you are morally corrupt. Sure, he could have done worse than you--well, maybe not."
Becky reached up to adjust the painting, but her hand was shaking so badly that she unadjusted it, instead. "I can't even straighten a painting," she said. She stepped back and buried her face in her hands.
Jonathan quickly went to the wall and straightened the painting. "There, it's straight," he said. "It's okay, now. Everything's okay. Don't cry."
(That was the worst thing he could have said, wasn't it? Everything's okay.)
"Thank you. I won't cry."
She quit her job the next day and disappeared. (Cheat...read ahead and find out where she went.)