Lately, work has been more worrisome than usual. You're a human in a mixed-species company (they're all mixed-species now to be honest), working alongside a great deal of anthropomorphic colleagues. That alone... can come with its problems, from the occasionally bad timed estrous cycle causing one or more of a single species to become irritable and unfriendly, to a damn office prankster literally marking their territory. Fortunately, the latter event was taken care of and the perpetrator was let go.
Your boss is a bull—literally—he's terrifying, but reasonable. Your cubical neighbor to the left is an alligator morph and the one to the right is a capuchin monkey. You've got a good rapport with both of them but you usually talk about sports around the water cooler. The secretary (fitting the stereotype) is a gazelle and she's a knock-out at that. Your parents always raised you to see no differences between anthros and baseline humans—everybody was made the same, but damn if you didn't want to run that particular gazelle down like a beast in the Serengeti.
You don't open up at work often because of some of the inalienable differences that you can't help but see—your sensitivity training; though, tells you that exact effect is a microaggression. Because of that you do everything that corporate wants you to about it. You reach out, you make friends, you mingle, you watch your jokes and basically act as much like Bob Ross or Mr. Rogers as you can. Still, humans are a minority in your office and, if you were pressed to gauge it, you're one of the more outgoing employees here when it came to human-anthro relationship-building.
All that shit said, Lena, the Gazelle is such a gorgeous worker that it sets you back. You've had more than one fantasy about taking her by the horns...
Unfortunately, she's got a boyfriend. Another Gazelle by the name of Arcturus, which—damn, what a name, huh?
Your company, like most companies, sells and supports a product. Yours in particular works on a suite of website building tools called 'Gen-E-Sys,' (no relation to the old, defunct '00s intellectual properties) which helps end users put together creative websites and full web architectures.
You work in sales, but you also moonlight in IT when the rush has to hit. You're on the project management team, but you're low on that totem pole. Everybody in your office is, you think, with a few exceptions.
You're pretty content with your life. You make decent money, you're in your late twenties, you've got a car and no debt... even if you do live in an apartment. Yep, life is going pretty swimmingly.
Or it was.
Until you met 'Whisper.'
She was brought into the office from a branch on the East Coast and—with a name like that, you could only imagine how tumultuous her early life was. 'Whisper,' you see, is so close to a non-human animal/pet name that it's nearly specist, but hits just under the radar and lands right in the zone of 'weird.'
Whisper McGreer was her full name, and she seemed like a real riot. A wolf anthro, standing in at about five foot eleven (at the ears, which is practically cheating) and an interesting coloration. She looks like a ghost with a white coat, amber-brown eyes circled in her sable black flesh. The pads of her paws, her lips, and her snout all stand out like coal in the snow. In short, she was a striking figure with her dark black nails and signature smirk.
Mind you—that's not your thing. First of all, when you grew up you actually owned a dog (a huskie name was Blaze) and you couldn't even imagine. Oh yeah, and second off?
She's your knew interim manager.
Initially, you didn't think it would be a problem, and you went on about your business. Until the harassment began.
It's subtle and pretty meaningless, mostly, the kind of thing that a superior would blow off if you tried to talk to them about it out of context, but in the moment? Well...
It all started one day in the breakroom, you were just at a fridge taking out your lunch when you heard a throaty and distinctly feminine growl in your ear. "Smells like fresh meat," Whisper said.
It scared the shit out of you so bad that you hit your head on the fridge.
She laughed, "Hah, you okay pumpkin?" she asked, her body language seeming concerned, but you weren't so sure.
"Y-yeah," you managed.
"Don't let the fridge beat you up too badly," she teased and sauntered off, her tail swishing behind her.
Another time, she came to your cubical, "Hey pup," she addressed you (which if you remembered your sensitivity training right was a total no-no. It was like calling a colleague 'babe!') leaning against your divider. "Got a favor to ask."
"Yes?" you looked up at her.
"Just some files need going over. Need the sales numbers double checked. Can you handle it?"
"Yeah," you said though it normally wasn't your place. Wasn't that her job right now? "No problem," you smiled.
Another time? In the parking garage? As you were going to your car? A loud wolf's howl scared the daylights out of you, echoing in that huge cement complex. You nearly jumped under your car! Then you heard Whisper's distinct laughter.
"Take it easy, pup. Nobody's gonna bite you," she said.
Yeah, you let it roll off, but you were pissed.
You gotta do something.
So, today, you show up at work at the usual time, making it to your cubicle in time to sign in when