Hard to be Your Man

by Princess Cora

It's a cross-dressed love story with a bit of spice, a bit of sugar, and more than a few cups of coffee.

*~*~*~*

As the door closed behind the boss, the atmosphere of the office lightened considerably. John Madden stretched back and grinned. Terence Griffin unbuttoned his sleeves and rolled them up, taking a sip of coffee. Christopher Beards, who had his shoulder-length black hair tied back as usual, shrugged off his black jacket and loosened his red tie. Chris yawned and went back to work, though he did not put up an appearance of enthusiam. The work day started early here.

In the next cubicle over, Tobias Grant took off his tie completely. Hell, why not? The boss wouldn't be back for another couple of hours. He pushed the keyboard back and flexed his fingers, letting his mind wander. Oh yeah, there was that new guy, Christopher. He smiled a little. He had a rather nice -

"Hey Toby," His friend Blake poked his head around the corner. "You started to patch up that server yet?" Toby and Blake were perhaps the only men in the corporation under 35, well except for the new guy. Toby was surprised he even made it in - Chris looked really young. Well, apparently he was good with graphic design, and the Butterfly Network was seriously lacking in that department. Maybe, thought Tobias, it was because BN refused to employ women... or outwardly gay men for that matter.

Without waiting for an answer, Blake had disappeared around a corner. Wierd kinda fellow, thought Toby. Blake had flame red hair, usually accompanied by a ton of hair gel, however not in an office situation. Blake was the kind of guy who liked to sit around and listen to heavy metal while checking out girls, so it was wierd that he was in such a mundane job as this. Well, he certainly did bring some spice into the Graphics Design department, though Tobias.

Toby was about to get back to work when he heard a noise of frustration from the next cubicle, which again drove his mind away from his computer.

~

Dammit! Christopher growled again, this time under his breath. No use getting too frustrated, he thought. It's just one server. Only... that one server had over a hundred domain names on it, and right now they were completely inaccessible. He hated when this sort of thing happened, although at his old job the servers went down all the time. To relieve some of his anger, he scrolled through the list of domain names.

"?" He had to repress a giggle at the thought, but didn't quite manage and it came out as a sort of snort. Suddenly a cheerful head popped up over the wall. Tobias also had long hair, though it was mocha brown and uneven at the ends, just past his shoulders. The fact that his skin had a dark tan, only slightly lighter than his hair, made his hazel-green eyes stand out even more.

"What's that about Clownfish?" he asked, a twinkle in his eyes.

"Oh, nothing. Just a domain name." Christopher grinned back, his light blue eyes having their own kind of shine. "You realize the server's down again?"

"Oh!" Tobias blinked a bit. "Ha, yeah, mind kinda wandered...." He clambered back to his chair, but didn't attend to the server. He was a graphics designer, not a server manager. Sometimes Christopher could take things a little too seriously.

~

By the end of the day, neither Tobias nor Christopher had gotten any work done, though only Chris had been really trying. Blake never got any work done, and the other members of the Graphics departement usually looked to Tobias for leadership. Which was strange, because in the one week Chris had been working here, his main impression of Tobias was not one of a leader.

The boss wasn't too happy. This involved a lot of shouting, and Tobias trying to make Christopher not shout back.

~

Christopher stalked into his room, angrier than he should be. He flung off his work clothes and whipped open his wardrobe to see himself in the mirror.

"Damn I wish I could wear a bra."

ring, ring, ring. Christopher sighed at his reflection, then went to pick up the phone, loosening the binding on his... her... chest.

"Cat?"

"Hey Abbey."

"How's the week been?"

"Horrible. I mean, it's ok, they really needed that graphics help, and there are some really nice workers there, but the boss is an absolute bitch... ugh and I hate pretending to be a guy!"

~* FLASHBACK *~

"Wow Cat, that looks great!"

"Yeah, you should really show it to the boss!"

"He'd get an absolute kick out of it!"

"And look how well it fits in with the new server setup..." Catherine Beards sat back and let her co-workers swarm over her design. The company was called Phoenix Servers, and she had taken the old logo and transformed it into a catchy hodgepodge of blues and purples. The new server setup was quite different and they needed a new layout to go with it. From the way these people were swarming around it, it was probably the one Phoenix would use. She smiled, pleased at her accomplishment.

~

"Catherine, you know how we're considering a merge with the Butterfly Network?"

She nodded. Obviously, that's why she had incorporated the blues and purples of Butterfly in her layout.

"Well, this new design is very ingenious, with one fault - it is ingenious. I don't know what kind of people this Butterfly place employs, so it is integral that someone go undercover to work under their conditions and scout out if the merger would be beneficial." Dr. Lirane, the boss of Phoenix, looked pointedly at Catherine. He had a way of giving a lot of information in one sentence, but she was used to paying close attention and filling in the gaps. "As you are the designer in question, I should think you will understand best how important and yet unimportant this is. Do you understand me?"

She nodded again, nervously tucking her black hair behind one ear.

"All right. You get the jist of it. To everyone else in the company - you are on leave until further notice. Good luck."

~

Phone conversation the next week

Abbey: WHAT!?!?! They won't accept you because you're a WOMAN!

Catherine: I know, that's what I was thinking. And Dr. Lirane won't say anything about anything, except, You work it out.

Abbey: Not accepting women is idiotic... I say you just quit and tell your boss that Butterfly is a stupid anti-women corporation and a merge would be useless.

Catherine: No. I can't give up! What if they are nice people, and they have a good reason for not accepting women? I would be the dumb one not to try something.

Abbey: Cat, what can you do?

Catherine: *silence* Don't call me Catherine.

Abbey: What?

Catherine: Don't call me Catherine - my name is Christopher now. Christopher Beards.

Abbey: Cat... Chris... no way. You're crazy. You'll never pull it off!

Catherine: I think I can... if you help me.

Abbey: *sigh* All right. I'll help as much as I can, if you think you can do it.

~* END FLASHBACK *~

Catherine, also known as Christopher, continued to chat absentmindedly with her best friend Abbey. She shrugged on a black t-shirt, changed into baggy jeans, and started to cook dinner.

It really had been a horrible day. Cat had been screamed at, restrained, frustrated, and laughed at. And, quite possibly even worse, someone had checked out her-

*beeeep* “Abbey can we talk later? Someone’s on the other line.”

*bip*

Cat: Hello?

Toby: Christopher?

Cat: Yeah.

Toby: You sound funny.

Cat: *sarcastically* oh, thanks.

Toby: That’s better. I was just calling to see if you were all right… the boss gave you a pretty hard lecture there.

Cat: Yeah, I’m okay, just making dinner.

Toby: Oooh what is it?

Cat: Nothing much, just some pasta and meat sauce.

Toby: Sounds good, I’m having leftovers… stick it in the microwave and press the button. *chuckle* I’m not a great cook.

Cat: I’ll make some extra and bring it for lunch… my cooking’s better than mediocre cafeteria food, not to brag or anything.

Toby: hey, that would be great. Well, glad you’re doing all right.

Cat: Yeah, you too.

Toby: Talk to you tomorrow.

Cat: Mm-hm.

Toby: Bye.

Cat: Bye.

*hang up*

As Cat hung up the phone, she let her head fall into her hands. No, she wasn’t really doing all right. In fact, she felt downright…

Manly.

*~*~*~*

Well, there's the first chapter folks... sort of based on a story by Savage Garden, not too sure what it's called... more on that later.

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