A Little Bonus

This one starts a little more slowly than most, but I think it will be worth the wait.

*

"Matrix Services, this is Mac, how may I help you?" I spoke into my headset as I wandered down the hall to my office, my BUD/S trained eyes scanning for my favorite coffee mug, and the unlucky Tango who had stolen it.

"Good morning Mac, this is Lindy from Global in Chicago. How's your day going so far?"

My mood jumped four notches, along with my heart, as I heard the voice of one of my favorite people in the world. Lindy Graham was the front woman for a clearing house for Executive Protection (Bodyguard) firms. She's made me a ton of money in the past, hooking my company up with great contracts with prestigious clients around the world. Her voice affected my like none before her. It was rich, sultry without sounding cheap, and I found myself getting rock hard just chatting with her, and although we'd never met, I felt we were the best of friends.

"Hey Lindy, my day's been crap so far, but it's better now that you're in it. How is the owner of the most sensuous voice in the world?" I smiled as she composed herself, obviously embarrassed. "How is it possible that someone 2,000 miles away can make me blush? Nobody makes me blush." She answered, and I heard the smile on her lips. "What's so crappy about your day already?"

"The worst thing imaginable has happened; I've lost my coffee cup!"

"Jesus Christ, Mac! Have you called the FBI? This is serious!" She played along with me.

"Well Lindy, I've worked with the Feebs, and most of them couldn't find their own asses with both hands, so no, I haven't called them."

"Have you looked in the file cabinets, behind the key to your desk?" My head snapped up. How did she know where the key to my desk was? I hurried over to my generic four drawer file cabinet, and sure enough, there was my 'L.A. County Coroner' mug.

Before I could figure out a way to ask her how she knew, she said, "Everybody has a dead zone in a file cabinet where they keep stuff, like the keys to the desks and extra coffee mugs. So let's talk about your bid submission for the Field Museum traveling exhibit, okay? You got the job, Mac. You'll be providing executive protection for the Director during the tour schedule we provided."

"That's good news, Lindy. I'll have my Liaison officer finish up the details and get back to you today sometime. With any luck, maybe I'll end up in Chicago and get to meet you finally. I hear that Gino's East is the place to get pizza in Chicago. How about it?"

"I really don't think I'm your type, Mac. I have another line ringing. Good-bye."

Wow, her voice had changed in a heartbeat from warm and inviting to cold and distant. I thought back through the conversation, trying to recall if I'd done something to offend her. My day had gone from crap to gold to crap again, and I had a feeling I'd missed something important. There was no reason for me to be so upset, and if it had been any other person who had hung up on me, I would have merely pronounced them to be an asshole and let it slide. And yet, my entire conscious mind was obsessing on this problem.

I was soon distracted by my day, and before I knew it, it was 6:00 pm and the world outside was as dark as my mood. I sat at my computer, writing and re-writing a letter to Lindy, asking for forgiveness for whatever I had done or said, and eventually I came to believe that I knew what was wrong. Our conversation was going along fine until I mentioned coming to Chicago.

I knew that Lindy was not married, and although we had been talking for years, I'd never heard her mention a significant other. I cranked up my prodigious computer and began to dig for information about Lindy Graham.

After a couple of minutes looking at high school transcripts, IRS documents and lots of other stuff I shouldn't have had access to, and shouldn't have looked at if I did, I had my answer. Did I feel guilty about looking through her past? Nope.

In the high school yearbook of the Ashland High School grizzlies, class of 1995, was a picture of the Varsity cheerleaders at a football game. At the top of the pyramid, balanced on the hands of another young woman, was Lindy Graham. She was beautiful; great smile, blonde over blue, as Billy Joel put it. Nice hips and legs in a typical cheerleading skirt and sweater, stretched to bursting by what appeared to be lovely breasts. The picture next to it showed the same group of young women in a line, facing the crowd, with what appeared to be a child in the middle, until I looked closer. The child was Lindy; based on the average height of most of her peers, she could not possibly have been over 4 feet tall!

She was perfectly proportioned and yet the top of her head was beneath most of her friends' elbows. No wonder she didn't want to meet me in person. I wondered if I really came off as that superficial, that entitled.

I called Lindy's boss Dick Jackson, a guy I'd been in the Seal teams with, and as soon ass he knew it was me, he began to tear strips off my ass..

"I have been in combat with you, Mac, so I know you're one of the bravest men I know, but you've got a pair of brass ones to call me today! I should kick your ass for treating her like that, you prick! This woman hasn't shown a scrap of a frown for the six years she's worked for me, and she spent the whole afternoon looking like she was going to jump out the window. I never in a million years thought you, of all people would treat a woman li..."

"Shut the fuck up and listen to me for a while, asshole! I said nothing that I thought would disturb her, I just mentioned that I loved talking with her, and that I'd like to take her out the next time I was in Chicago. We went from friendly banter to ice house in three seconds, and I've been trying to figure out what I did wrong for three hours. I really like her, and I mean way more than there is any reason for, and I want to know how I fucked up so I can apologize properly, okay? I found a picture of her in high school, and I think she's scared that I won't like her because she's so tiny, but it doesn't matter to me. I have never felt like this before, and for the first time, I'm afraid I've fucked up the very thing I've been looking for all of my life."

"Sorry to be so much like a dad, but this woman is very important to me, not just because she's a friend, but she's an amazing asset here, and I just made her my partner, okay? For what it's worth, you must have it bad; I've never heard you use so many words in a month, let alone a conversation. And you got it in one, by the way. She came into my office before she went home, and basically had a breakdown over you. I didn't know what you'd done to her, but I've already booked a flight to Oregon to kick your ass. I don't know what I'll do with the ticket now, though."

"Go ahead and use it; come to Ashland, see some plays; you can use my place to crash in, but I won't be there."

"Why not?"

"Because I've booked a flight to Chicago to apologize in person."

"No shit? Hey, I have an idea."

"I was hoping you might, fill me in..."

Monday morning found Lindy Graham in her office chair, staring at the phone. She half hoped it would ring and half hoped it wouldn't. She felt awful about being so mean to Mac on Friday. She'd had all weekend to think, and she realized that not telling Mac about her size was an omission she'd tried to gather the nerve to correct a hundred times in the past. He just sounded so warm and wonderful, and she couldn't wait to talk to him again. She just hoped to God that she hadn't made him hate her. She just plain panicked when he'd said he was coming to Chicago.

She was tough as nails and a very effective asset for her boss, and her salary reflected it; she made considerably more than most of the people in her office, even those who made all the short jokes. Only a few weeks ago, Dick had made her a co-owner, and the hazing had gone away, since she now had the authority to terminate people who got out of line. It also didn't hurt that she'd gotten an office next to his, just behind her prior workstation as his executive assistant.

Her size had made her the woman she was; there was no doubt about that, and although she liked to think she'd moved beyond insecurity, it was still very deeply ingrained in her psyche, and she fought it every single day. Today she was miserable, and pretty certain she'd screwed up her relationship with Mac, such as it was. For about the ninth time in the last three days, she felt as if she might cry. As the heat crept up her face, her desk phone rang; it was Dick.

"Hey Lin, can you come in for a couple of minutes?"

"Not a problem, Dick, just let me freshen up a minute, and I'll be right in."

She hurried to her private en suite, put some allergy drops in her eyes to hide the redness and fixed her makeup. Her heart warmed when her eyes swept the fixtures, custom made at Dick's instructions to fit her 3' 10" height. Her face and torso were reflected in the mirror, and other than the shadow of worry on her face, she was a lovely woman. She wore a cream colored silk blouse with a contrasting camisole beneath it, and one of a half dozen custom-made bras presented the swell of her generous cleavage. Her waist was quite small, even for someone as petite as she, and her hips swelled to fill out her light brown skirt, cut to mid-thigh. Her new Italian peep-toe pumps harmonized nicely with the rest of her ensemble, and the heels raised her to a towering 4' 3". Her blonde hair was French-braided and the resulting loose ponytail reached her hips, curling naturally as it fell.

She entered her partner's office, immediately noticing the lovely bouquet on his credenza, featuring six tall Bird of Paradise blooms. Dick had his back to her, gazing out his window at the lake and the Chicago skyline. It was a common posture for him; he loved his town and she was used to talking to his back, at least until the conversation became focused, when he would turn around and make eye contact.

"So you probably realize that we have a problem with Mac, right"

"Yes I do, Dick, and it's really all my fault. He said he would be coming to Chicago, and I was terrified that he would be shocked by my appearance, and I was terribly rude to him. As soon as we are done here, I am going to call and apologize to him, and I'd like to apologize to you right now. I know that he and you go way back, and that you love him like a brother; so in a sense, I have hurt you too, Dick. I am so regretful that I can hardly express it, after all you've done for me, and I will do anything to make this right."

"He has decided not to come to Chicago, Lindy; he also said that he feels that you and he cannot continue to maintain the same relationship as before your outburst. He didn't know what he'd done to make you angry, but he sent the flowers over there as an apology."

"Oh, God, no!" Lindy gasped, her tears springing forth anew. "I have to go, Dick. I have to call him right now!"

"He knows about your size, Lindy, and it doesn't matter to me, I just want to hold you in my arms and make you happy."

It took a moment for Lindy to process the awkward syntax in Dick's last sentence, and by the time she had, his chair has spun around and a strikingly handsome man stood before her, and then sank to his knees in front of her chair.

"When I thought I'd hurt your feelings, I couldn't stand it, Lindy, I have to tell you that I have never had these kinds of feelings for anyone, not even people I've been around all my life. The thought that I might not talk to you again was so painful that I had to come here to make sure I could fix it, fix us, in person. For all I know there might not even be an us, but I couldn't take the chance that..."

"Mac, shut up and kiss me." She stood up and leaned into his chest, and they were exactly the same height.

Exactly the perfect height.

*

Stay tuned for the next chapter in "A Little Bonus"

OGB