Occasioni

Occasioni is Ellie’s private system for resisting the urge to bite Corey Allen, turning moments of temptation into a score she can record and review. Its rules make restraint countable, but the game also draws Ellie’s attention toward the circumstances that make biting possible. As those circumstances change, its tally becomes more than a measure of self-control: it charts Corey’s movements through the office and, ultimately, points toward a pattern of misconduct that reaches beyond Ellie herself.

Definition and Rules

Ellie keeps the notebook at work, shut away at the back of her desk drawer. Whenever the desire to bite Corey grows difficult to resist, she consults her list and records each occasion when she could have bitten him but did not. Each entry gets a point, along with the place and time marked beside a star. The rules are simple: an opportunity avoided counts, not an act carried out.

The examples give the game its unsettling precision. Ellie awards herself a point for passing Corey on a deserted staircase, for noticing he has entered the bathroom without immediately locking the door, and for seeing him go alone to the photocopy room after everyone else has left. These are not abstract tests of will. Each entry identifies a particular place, circumstance, and opening, making the notebook a record of how Ellie imagines the possibility of biting him.

When she reaches ten points, Ellie takes herself out for ice cream. While eating it, she allows herself to fantasize about biting Corey as much as she likes. The reward does not erase the desire; it separates the fantasy from the behavior she is trying not to enact. The game therefore gives Ellie a way to recognize her restraint without pretending that the impulse has disappeared.

The Tally as a Record of the Office

After a couple of weeks, Ellie notices that the occasions form a pattern over time. At first they are scarce, then become more frequent as she learns Corey’s schedule and identifies office locations where someone could bite him without being seen. The growing score records not only restraint, but also her increasing knowledge of his routines and of where the office might offer privacy.

By mid-December, the numbers fall sharply. Corey’s schedule has become unpredictable, and the places Ellie considers suitable are rarely empty. The data are noisy enough that she takes a while to recognize who is often present in those locations: Michelle from Accounting, who is married. The game’s records thus disclose an unexpected change in the office’s pattern. The apparent decline in opportunities is tied to Corey’s movements and to another woman’s frequent presence, not simply to Ellie losing interest or mastering her impulse.

The Game at the Christmas Party

By the pre-Christmas company party, Occasioni no longer entertains Ellie. She does not merely want to imagine biting Corey; she wants to do it, and the inability to act on that desire infuriates her. The game’s original bargain—count the occasions she passes up—has become harder to sustain as a fantasy and a tally compete with the urge to act.

After leaving her empty glass on a nearby table, Ellie goes to the bathroom to splash water on her face. When she comes out, Corey is alone in the empty corridor, waiting for her. The encounter is an especially tempting occasion, but the point it earns has a practical consequence: if Ellie does not want to do something she will regret, she has to leave. The rule turns the score from a retrospective note into an immediate instruction at the moment it is most needed.

Aftermath and Recurrence

The later revelations give the notebook’s pattern a significance Ellie could not have established from her own tally alone. Corey has put his hands on Ellie, Michelle, and several other women. Human Resources responds decisively; Corey leaves, Ellie’s personnel file contains no mention of the matter, and she finds herself with many more friends at work than before. The account does not say that the game itself caused the investigation or the company’s response. Instead, its record of opportunity and temptation sits alongside the wider workplace pattern that comes to light.

Six months after Corey leaves, Ellie leaves the job in search of a fresh start. She then changes jobs every year. At each new workplace, she learns that there is a man of this kind in every office, the one people whisper about. The logic of Occasioni persists: Ellie can listen, wait, and give him an opportunity, and he will eventually seek her out. What began as a private scoring system for not biting Corey becomes a repeatable way of watching for misconduct. Its central irony is that Ellie starts by tracking the situations in which she might harm someone, but the returning pattern makes her attentive to the man whose actions put women around him at risk.