*FYI, this is Chapter 1 of 3 that'll be shared here on BC!*

CHAPTER ONE: AN OFFICE SURPRISE

Office jobs are tough. It’s strange how just sitting at a desk all day, answering emails and talking to coworkers can be so mentally draining. Shocking! Who could have guessed?

My name is Charlie and I’m a 24-year old Junior Marketing Associate at a company called ‘Attention Marketing Agency’. I know, I know… Attention? It’s pretty on the nose. It feels like whoever named the company played a simple game of word association with the word ‘marketing’ and picked the first thing that came to mind.

Basically, my job is to create grids, pitch decks, and other materials that we’ll use to present our strategies to 7-figure clients looking to grow their businesses. You’d think it’s constantly stimulating, like, ‘Wow! You get to be creative and make money in the process?’. Not really. I’m the lowest rung on the ladder. And what happens to the lowest rung on a ladder? It’s always the first to get stepped on.

One of the few saving graces of this job is my coworker, Brendan. Since moving to Chicago after college, he’s been one of my few, consistent friends. We both started on the same day, nearly a year and a half ago, we share the same title, and we enjoy commiserating over the frustrating elements of our jobs. I generally consider myself an introvert, but even introverts need someone to vent to in order to stay sane.

Most days blend together around here, Arriving at 9:00, leaving around 5:30 or 6:00, having rinsed and repeated the same tasks. But today was different. Over the last few weeks, we’ve heard whispers about our direct supervisor, Noelle, stepping down. Nobody, at least at my level, knew any specifics. But on this Monday morning, my entire department of around 30 people received an email from my boss’s boss to ‘address a change in the company’ that’d take place this afternoon.

“My money’s on that she got fired,” Brendan said, leaning back in his chair and stretching his neck around the divider between our desks.

“We don’t even know if she’s leaving,” I told Brendan, but mostly trying to reassure myself.

If Noelle were to leave, Attention would almost certainly be promoting from within. And as someone who’s sick of being on the lowest rung, I’d obviously love to get that gig. However, Brendan is one of the most competitive people in the world and he’d undoubtedly be gunning for the same position. That was the last thing I wanted. If I got the role, he’d resent me forever and I’d lose my closest work friend. And if he got the role, he’d be my new boss and inevitably ruin our wonderful work dynamic and the only thing keeping me sane on a day-to-day basis.

But honestly, why wouldn’t they hire him? Not only is he great at his job, but Brendan’s a tall, charismatic, handsome guy. Let’s face it — those kinds of people are always the ones who get the big, glamorous promotion. They shine too brightly to be constantly held in the basement.

As for me? Take one look at me and you’ll immediately realize why I’ve got a brutal, uphill climb to the top. I’m 5 foot 2. Yeah, I know. The curse of having short parents I guess. Sometimes people try to make me feel better by calling me a ‘short king’, which I appreciate, but it’s typically uttered by girls while literally looking down at me. And it almost always comes across in this cutesy, patronizing way, even if they don’t mean it.

So years ago, I made the choice to distract from my height by growing out my light brunette hair to extraordinary length. Since the end of high school, I’ve kept that exact same hairstyle – no ponytails, no braids… just flat, simple and boring. Still, something about long hair gives me confidence and originality that I otherwise wouldn’t have. Maybe others don’t see it that way, but I certainly do.

The rest of my morning was spent focusing on dull grid-building and deliberately trying to get the thought of losing Brendan to a promotion out of my head. But I could only put off that thought for so long. It was time to trek to the conference room for the dreaded company announcement.

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You’d think a successful company like Attention would shell out for a conference room with more than six chairs, but you’d be wrong. The 30-ish employees gradually made their way into the room and packed like sardines around the table, waiting for the Director of Brand Management Marketing — a man named Oliver — to take his seat at the head of the table.

“Do you think they’ll announce her replacement today too?” Brendan theorized, all jittery with excitement. After even over a year, I still haven’t got used to how his 6’0” frame towered over me by nearly a foot.

I looked straight up, shooting him an annoyed glare. “Dude, she hasn’t confirmed anything. You’re getting way too ahead of yourself.”
He shrugged, accepting he’d learn soon enough. After a few minutes of being smooshed, Oliver finally squirmed his way through the crowd.

“Sorry, sorry…” he muttered awkwardly. “Was on a call…” Oliver was a competent leader, but by no means a competent speaker. You’d think being a department head for a major marketing agency would require those skills, but apparently not.

“So, uh, thanks for packing in here,” Oliver spoke in his strong Chicago accent. That’s one thing I learned about this city — guys in their 60s always seem to have that same harsh vowel enunciation. But nobody younger seemed to carry on that accent ‘tradition’.

“A lotta you have been jawing about some news,” he continued, absorbing his employees’ anxious faces around the room. Noelle, our frumpy but diligent supervisor in her early 40s, stood mere feet from him, like he was about to make an announcement about her.

Oliver triumphantly placed his hands on his hips like a mayor admiring his city. “I’m happy to announce this’ll benefit all you guys... We’re officially implementing a wellness stipend for every single Attention employee!”

The room was split in reaction. Half of the people cheered, the other half clearly had no idea what a ‘wellness stipend’ was. I was in the latter half.

“Alright, alright, settle... Look, for those who aren’t familiar, it’s a three grand bonus we’re giving each of you to focus on self-improvement.”
Now the entire room knew what he meant. I’ve heard of these! It’s a trend that companies are jumping on where employees basically get a monetary bonus to better themselves. Employees get free money, and companies get happier employees. It’s a win-win.

The chatter was loud and ecstatic. It took a minute for Oliver to get everyone quiet again.

“We wanna get this as soon as possible, so in the next few days, please submit your preferred company to HR, and we’ll purchase gift cards or credit to your preferred business,” Oliver explained. After fielding a few questions on specifics, he dismissed the group.

This was incredible! Not only was I getting an unexpected three thousand dollars, but I also evaded an awkward resignation announcement from Noelle – for now, at least.

Amazing how the announcement of a (some-strings-attached) gift can really uplift the mood of everyone in an office. Everyone, of course, except Brendan.

I looked at Brendan sulking in his seat, dismally editing an excel document. I groaned. “Really? You can’t be happy about three grand?”
Brendan sighed. “No, I can. It’s just…”

“Yeah, I know, the promotion. Look, if you wanna know so bad, just ask Noelle,” I said to him, knowing full well he wouldn’t. “Just be happy everyone got something positive. Think of all the ways you can improve yourself now!”

He smiled, jokingly smug. “How can you get more perfect than me?”

We shared a laugh, then broke into discussion on all the things we could spend this money on.

As much fun as it was dreaming and mulling over the options with Brendan and a few other coworkers for the rest of Monday, there was still the pressure to submit my final selections to HR by the end of tomorrow — I guess in the pursuit of making these purchases by the end of April for some dumb accounting reason.

I was having trouble making a final call, so I listened to my colleagues’ choices and planned to copy what sounded best. One of them immediately thought of doing cooking classes for himself and his girlfriend. Sure that’d be fun — and I could certainly use the help — but was cooking really going to destress me?

Another one was an avid golfer and has complained for months about his shitty golf clubs. Therefore, new clubs would be the bulk of that purchase. But I didn’t play any sports.

As I quickly learned, the majority of people had intentions of signing up for gym memberships. I’ll be honest, that idea sounded terrifying to me. I’d always felt so uncomfortable in gyms. Not only was I way shorter than most guys present, but I was weak and rail-thin — a horrible combination. The few times in college that I even stepped into a gym, I felt too nervous to lift weights and settled for the elliptical. Look, I know the gym is supposed to be about improvement but with my body, it’d be a lost cause.

“You know, we could always sign up for one together,” Brendan suggested. “It’d be a fun way to hang out outside of work, and I could teach you how to work out. I’ll have a gym buddy, you’ll get ripped… It'll be great!”

I told him I’d sleep on it, which was mostly a way of avoiding the conversation. But as I made my way home from work that evening and sat alone in my apartment, I wondered something: Maybe I really could use a change.

I’m always so upset with my appearance but I never do anything about it. Here it is, a gift from the heavens (well, really HR), falling onto my lap — an avenue to self-improvement, and hey, maybe a career boost too.

The $3,000 was use it or lose it, so I texted Brendan and told him I was in. He was ecstatic.

‘DUDE! YES! I can’t fucking wait.’ he texted me.

‘Haha I’m glad. Do you have a gym in mind?’

‘It’s a little pricey, yeah, but let’s do this place called ‘Iron Arena’. It’s equidistant from our apartments and it’s on the way home from work. We’ll go like twice a week and get in shape in no time.’

‘Lol sounds like a plan. Who am I to debate the gym expert?’ I replied.

He thumbs-upped my message as I leaned back in my bed, basking in the certainty of a solid plan. It felt cathartic knowing I was finally doing something about my future. Brendan and Charlie: brand new workout buddies.

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The first thing I did Tuesday morning was go to the floor where HR’s offices were. Unsurprisingly, the line was all the way down the hall with people submitting their requests. It was April 30th, and it was obvious they were scrambling to get these requests in. Classic Attention, waiting til the last second for everything.

After around 20 minutes in line, I spoke to a woman named Celine who’d done my start paperwork many months back. Celine was a portly, sweaty blonde lady — though I’m sure the sweat was mostly due to the daunting line of anxious employees.

“Got your selection?” she asked, quite rudely.

“Yeah, I’m signing up for Iron Arena. The gym.”

She typed it into the computer. “The one on Halsted?”

“Yep,” I replied.

“All three grand for this?”

“Yes ma’am.”

She expeditiously typed for a few more moments, barely even looking up at me. “Last name?”

“Lansing,” I said bluntly. She clearly didn’t remember me, but iit didn’t matter as she was already calling the next person in line. “Next!”

“I, uh… thanks,” I managed to mumble out before the next employee scooted in front of me to be rudely helped by Celine. But who cares. Even just signing up for this gym I already felt stronger and healthier.

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We were told that the payments — all in the form of gift cards or company credit — wouldn’t be in our hands til Friday, but that didn’t stop Brendan from diving right into our plans for the coming week.

“Yo, Charlie, come here,” he said, disrupting me from my workflow. Frankly, I welcomed the distraction.

I wheeled my chair over to his desk. “What is that?” I said in shock.

He had a muscular and vascular chart of the human body pulled up, fullscreen on his computer. But it looked way more realistic than it needed to be.

“Don’t be so squeamish. I wanna walk you through the muscles we’re gonna be working on this weekend.” Brendan spent the next several minutes name-dropping the names of muscle groups and other anatomical terms I’d never heard in my life — and I consider myself a pretty smart guy.

It felt nice seeing Brendan channel his energy into something other than his job — particularly something that involved me. Even if working out hadn’t been my ‘thing’, I liked knowing that it was his thing, and something we could work on together to grow our friendship.

You know it’s funny… I’ve learned in my brief time of adulthood that friends don’t come as easily as they did in high school or college. You wake up, you work, you go home. Sometimes you’re lucky enough to have a group of friends that you inherited from earlier and have stayed in touch with, but if not, the number one hub for meeting people is at the office. So seeing the real time transition from ‘work friends’ to actual friends was a joy.

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And so I let Brendan do his thing over the next few days. In moments of downtime, we’d discuss our workout plans and continue going over exercises. I’m sure at times it felt like talking to a brick wall, but he thankfully remained patient.

Friday had finally come, and just like on Tuesday, employees from all of Attention’s departments had migrated to the HR floor, anxiously lining up to receive their wellness stipend gift cards or credit statements.

Things moved a lot faster this time around. No submission of information, no signing of any forms… just a clean, simple pickup process.

Colleagues buzzed about, flashing each other their gift cards and ogling the $3000 worth of life improvement they’ve each received.

The same woman from before, Celine, was there when I finally reached the front of the line.

“Big start to May!” I announced.

She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, I get these too, you know…” She was far too stressed to share in anyone’s joy. “Name?”

Jeez, she forgot again? “Charlie Lansing,” I uttered.

Claire snagged the card from a giant, unorganized pile and handed it to me. It was sealed in a neat little envelope with my last name and first initial on it.

I stepped aside, giddily opening up my card to bask in its wonder.

Huh… It wasn’t a gift card or anything. Just a slip of paper. They must’ve just purchased store credit and handed me a receipt.

But as I began reading the card, something still felt off…

“Iron… Athena?” I said aloud to myself. That wasn’t the name. It’s Iron Arena. Maybe Brendan messed up the name. But I swore it was ‘Arena’…

I wanted to speak to Celine, but she was busy assisting the ever-growing line of recipients.

‘Iron Athena: $3000.00 credit,’ the card read. This was so weird. Did Brendan just have it wrong the whole time? Maybe this is a different location with a slightly different name?

Instead of spinning in circles, I whipped out my phone to google the name. Sure enough, ‘Iron Arena on Halsted’ popped right up.

So out of curiosity, I typed in Iron Athena. And no exaggeration, I nearly dropped my phone.

Also on Halsted, but several miles up the road was another gym. I stared at the search results page in complete shock.

Iron Athena: A Gym for Women.

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I'll be posting the first three chapters of this novel here on BC over the next week or two. I sincerely hope you enjoy this one, and I'm endlessly grateful for your support :)

Amazon Link: https://www.amazon.com/Youll-Fit-Right-Gradual-Feminization-...