Thread: Four Letters (Ariamella and Dane Stalling)

It was definite, Marisa thought, that the worst part of any job was the first-day acclimation of getting used to... everything. Literally, figuratively, mentally, emotionally the thing was a chore , and it was one that she despised. It meant she had to be attentive to every little thing that went on around her, and while that wasn't necessarily bad or tiresome, it was just worrisome if she she picked up on something that was actually false. After Christian had come around, she figured he was the office gossip, the one who you came to if you wanted to know something about someone. Practically anything about anyone. But as it turned out, the true gossip was Andrea and the other girl that worked with her just outside James Walker's office. She hadn't heard them talk maliciously about anybody in the times she had walked by, but she saw that people came to them for information both work-related and not. Marisa had spent enough time in offices filled with alpha females to know which ones were really on top, and just because they had the title of Assistant under their name didn't necessarily mean they were out of the running of being one of those hidden office lionesses. And she knew it, that she and Andrea would get along just fine. Marisa wasn't anything close to the type to engage in office talk and the juicy little tidbits that came along with it. Knowing where to get it was what made women like Andrea important. They wouldn't just share that information with just anyone, and she suspected Andrea wouldn't just blabber it off just because she asked for it. Yet, Marisa knew with what she had in mind for the series of articles, she'd need the dirt on a few of the men walking around. Not horrifyingly disgusting announcements of all their sexual endeavors, but just the minor things like how they flirted, or the small details that floated around about how good they were in bed. Of course, she wouldn't actually need those details until after she had chosen the right man for each article. And this was where the young woman excelled in her line of work. Choosing which people to interview, especially on anonymous leads, was a difficult task but one that she had remarkable intuition for. There was no way to get to all of them in that first night, and it would have been a stupid decision to even want to get through all of them. She had no doubts in her mind that some of those people who were going to put up red slips of paper were going to prove to be completely useless for what she needed. It was a harsh thought, but one that was entirely realistic, and if a journalist didn't possess that kind of mind, then they were shit out of luck when it came to discerning between good leads from the bad. She knew there was going to be bad, and lots of it. So when five o'clock came around and many of the employees who had began their day early started trickling out, Marisa walked over to the bulletin board by the restrooms to pick up whatever slips had been left for her. Her eyes scanned the board to the first group, fingers raised in gesture to unpin them, when she froze. A bright grin made its way onto her face at the first line she saw. Heroin? Dude that's easy... Ooh, okay. Obviously not her group of slips. Her attention turned to the second group of slips, all pinned up haphazardly on the board, and she quickly took them down to read them at her desk. The first few were unpromising and unimpressive she was about to swipe them away when one in particular caught her eye... Talk about casual sex? Lame. Cole's at 700. I'll find you. This was it. Marisa smiled to herself. The others had been filled with phone numbers, questions, comments about casual sex that bordered on being douchey, but this... whoever had written it was the real deal. It had the confident, flirty flare of a guy who was looking to pick someone up, and this was exactly what she wanted. 700 couldn't come any sooner. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Marisa arrived at 650 just out of habit for being 10 minutes early, and she took a seat at the bar. How long had it been since she'd stepped foot in here? The place was almost iconic for her, having been the place of poison when her friend's dragged her out for a night in the city on her twenty-first birthday. A hint of a smirk crossed her face. Speaking of one night stands... Well, she hadn't gone home with the guy after after Cole's, but he'd followed them to a club, then she was brought home. That was an experience all on its own. She wasn't really a casual sex kind of person, but as far as those things went, she could remember the sex was bad. At least, definitely not good. Hopefully whoever wanted to meet her tonight was someone that walked the walk as easily as he talked the talk.