Julia had years of experience leading sexual harassment seminars, so she knew what to expect. Most employees just wanted the whole tedious affair to be over as quickly as possible, so they sat silently on their molded plastic chairs, chewing their complimentary pastries and letting Julia's words wash over them with bovine indifference.

But there was always at least one employee who was galled by the stifling rules of workplace conduct and turned confrontational. These wannabe Constitutional scholars would proffer impassioned but dubious legal arguments about how they had a First Amendment right to compliment a co-worker's tits. Or at least look at them for God's sake, without worrying about a lawsuit. This was still America, after all.

So Julia was prepared for that. She wasn't prepared, however, for someone to stand up and drop his pants.

He was a newly hired Sales Associate and Julia couldn't imagine what the Manager of the Santa Monica store was thinking when she hired this dipshit. In his early twenties, he had a vintage Bazooka Joe T-shirt, Curt Cobain hair and the screamingly affected name of Galen. Julia would have bet any amount of money that he was in a band. And she would have gone double-or-nothing that the band sucked.

When he came into the conference room, ten minutes late, Julia had already begun her PowerPoint presentation. But rather than politely slinking into an open seat off to the side, he loudly pushed past knees and stepped on feet to get to a seat in the center of the third row, where he stage-whispered to another employee, "I hear this is a great place to meet chicks!"

In response to virtually everything Julia said, Galen had a wisecrack. When Julia explained that for a behavior to qualify as harassment, it has to be "unwelcome," Galen said, "So it's OK to grab your ass or whatever as long as you're cool with it?"

Julia refused to rise to the bait and calmly explained that, yes, he was technically correct. But it still wasn't a smart idea.

"But what about those chicks who are, like, super-uptight or whatever and are offended by freakin' everything? Can't they just sue for, like, whatever?"

At which point Julia patiently explained the "reasonable woman" standard in determining what constitutes harassment. To which Galen quipped, "Reasonable woman? Isn't that, like, a contradiction in terms or whatever?"

"No, it's not," said Julia, through a tight smile. Galen grinned back. He had gotten to her, and he knew it.

Julia soldiered on for another hour, parrying Galen's arguments and sidestepping his provocations. Until finally, mercifully, she reached the last PowerPoint slide: Q&A.

"Does anyone have any questions?" she asked.

"Yeah," said Galen, rising to his feet. She sighed inwardly. "Is this..." He let his his pants fall to his ankles. "...sexual harassment?"

This took Julia, and everybody else, by surprise. There was some scattered snickering, but mostly people sat tensely, waiting to see how Julia was going to handle this.

She didn't have long to decide what to say in response to this flagrant defiance of her authority. A threat? Cutting sarcasm? Both of those things were warranted, but they would just be throwing fuel on the fire.

Instead, she just grinned at him with wry amusement and then pointedly turned her attention elsewhere. "Anybody else?" she nonchalantly asked to the group. And the room laughed appreciatively.

Galen suddenly felt very foolish. Originally, he was the rebellious student, refusing to be cowed by the overbearing teacher. But now, he was just some fucking idiot, standing there with his pants around his ankles in the middle of a conference room.

He quickly pulled up his pants and sheepishly sat back down, unaware that he had not zipped the fly.

Julia saw this out of the corner of her eye and smiled to herself. Few things in life were more satisfying to her than cutting these assholes down to size.

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When Debbie was finished putting Robyn through her grueling paces, Dave practically had to carry her back to her room.

"Please tell me I never have to do that again," she pleaded.

"You don't," Dave said.

"Thank Christ!"

"Until Wednesday." It was Monday.

"You know, there's a special place in Hell for people like you." Dave made a noise, a soft hiss like a tire leaking air, that Robyn realized was Dave's version of a laugh.

He was really warming up to Robyn.

Suddenly, Robyn heard a throaty cry of pain and when she turned towards the sound, she saw a woman scampering past her on stubby legs. The woman was middle age, soft and round, with saggy cheeks and tired eyes.

In her wake was another trainer. Robyn had heard his name once. Brando. Or something equally ridiculous. He was wearing the same form-fitting clothing as Dave, his lycra shirt molding itself to his chiseled abs. He was the very picture of rugged masculinity, or would have been, had he not been sitting dazed on the grass with his nose bleeding, yelling, "Sharon, get back here!"

Robyn could piece together what had happened. Lulled into complacency by Sharon's doughy physique, Brando hadn't bothered to shackle her. And he certainly never imagined that she would physically attack him. Robyn smiled, imagining how surprised and embarrassed he must have been when she struck his nose with the heel of her palm and took off.

"Didn't see that coming," Dave said drolly, as he watched Sharon toddle as fast as she could towards the wall. She was already winded, breathing in ragged, gasping breaths. It was an act of futility and everyone but Sharon seemed to understand that.

Sharon reached the wall, found some handholds, and tried to hoist herself up. Straining, she made no progress, her feet flailing, trying to find purchase on the uneven brick. Brando was back on his feet now, walking angrily towards her, his fingers pinching his nostrils together to stop the flow of blood.

"Be right back," Dave said to Robyn as he went to help his fellow trainer deal with Sharon. Still exhausted, and without Dave supporting her, Robyn almost collapsed, but managed to steady herself, leaning against the trunk of an oak tree.

She watched as Dave and Brando each grabbed one of Sharon's stubby arms and pulled her off the wall. They had to drag her away, not because she was resisting, but because she was spent. It was only when she realized where they were taking her that she started putting up a fight.

"No!" Sharon shouted. "No!" She dug her heels into the grass, but it did no good.

Robyn watched, horrified, as they locked Sharon in the metal box, the one where Robyn had first encountered Kendra when she arrived here a seeming eternity ago.

"Let me out!" shrieked Sharon. "Let! Me! Out!"

"Hab fud," Brando said, pinching his nose again.

Dave rejoined Robyn. "Well," he said, "that was exciting."

He led Robyn back to her bungalow to the sound of Sharon's weeping.

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"The swatches you wanted are here," Dave informed her after she had downed an enormous glass of what looked like tapioca but tasted like motor oil and mushrooms.

Robyn stared at Dave. "Are we really going to ignore the elephant in the room?" Dave looked at her blankly. "Sharon!"

"She's amazing, isn't she?" Dave said with sincere admiration. "Such spirit!"

Robyn was appalled. "You locked her in a box!"

"She tried to escape," Dave said simply.

"But she didn't! She didn't even come close!"

Dave nodded. "That's the thing about failure. It comes with a price." Considering the subject closed, he smoothly switched topics. "Brian also has some questions about the floral arrangements."

Robyn knew that she should keep pushing, but she also knew that nothing she said would help Sharon. Besides, she had a wedding to plan.

After all, those flowers weren't going to arrange themselves.

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