Author's note: Yeah, yeah, celebs is tacky. But they're just people, highly desirable ones at that. I've tried to make more of my subjects than just eye candy, for, in fact and depending on your taste, they may not be. Please be aware that there is erotica but this story also includes other story elements. This author does not advocate unprotected sex, but hey, it's my fantasy.
i. Meeting the Players
Tasha was stuck on a call. So much for break. Mrs. Kilpatrick from Haddonfield was wondering why we didn’t pay her claim. What she didn’t seem to get was that we couldn’t pay a bill if we didn’t have it yet. The six days that had elapsed since her procedure was too early for the insurance company we both phone jockeyed for to have received something, much less paid it.
After her third time through the same conversation, Tasha tilted her chair back and rolled her eyes. She started to use the word “ma’am” repeatedly, a clear indication of her annoyance. “Ma’am, we just don’t have that claim yet. I can call the doctor’s office and see if they’ll fax it to me. Yes, ma’am. Yes. Ok, Ma’am, will you hold for two to three minutes while I speak to them? Thank you.” Anything to get the woman off the phone.
Such was the life of a lowly customer service consultant. Both Tasha and I considered ourselves long-term employees, as in, we’d been there more than 2 years. We’d learned all the tricks of the trade. Two minutes later a fax was on the way.
“Rough morning?” I asked unnecessarily.
“You bet your ass,” Tasha said through gritted teeth. “Man, these people today…I’ll bet I’ve taken fifty calls…” then the little cloud around her cleared. “I should have sixty-nine by lunch.”
I snorted. “Well, that's easy production. What’s on your mind, girlfriend?” I pretended to leer at her. She avoided the question by asking one of her own.
“So, what are you doing tonight, birthday girl?”
“Probably nothing much--I’m saving it for the weekend. Why, did you want to come over and spank me?” Emphasis on ‘spank me.’
“Oooh, that sounds fun… we’ll have to make a point to do it this weekend.” She was giving me shit. We liked to make people wonder about us even though we were both straight.
“Well, then that’s two of us. We should go out. Do you think you could get tomorrow off? It’s still early in the day. Maybe there’s available time. You should check.”
Tasha mulled it over. “A three-day weekend does sound really good, now that you mention it. I haven’t done that in months. Why don’t I go talk to my supe and I’ll get back to you.”
With that, Tasha left to check the schedule and find her supervisor, so I ran to the bathroom and then back to my own cube in another section of the building. As I put my headset back on for the next two-hour sit, my mind started wandering toward the weekend. There had to be something either fun, naughty, or both to get up to. Maybe we could go on the long-delayed tour of the adult bookstore on the “bad” side of town. Or up into the foothills. That was something I’d been itching to do for as long as I’d lived in our medium-sized city at the foot of the Rockies. With jobs like ours, Tasha and I took delight in anything that would make us laugh. Our senses of humor were a lot alike, though mine gravitated toward kinky and hers toward, “I get drunk, I fall down.”
The rest of the morning passed without incident. Tasha and I have lunch at different times, so I didn’t have a chance to ask her about getting the day off. I figured I’d stop by her cubicle at the end of break. When she wasn’t there, I chalked it up to training; she was in transition between departments. Mid-afternoon I sent her an email:
“Hey. You weren’t at your desk after lunch. Any word on tomorrow yet? I’ll be leaving at 4:00 due to my birthday hour, and I’m definitely not doing any overtime. Let me know, ok?”
At 3:30 I was paged. This was a surprise. Since my family in town weren’t given to public gift-giving, who in the world could be having something delivered? A lot of the (married) people in my unit were constantly being called up front for flowers, balloon bouquets, and various happy-grams. We’d had the clown, of course, but I’d also seen appearances by the bag lady, a gorilla, the grim reaper, and once a stripper, although the big bosses put the kibosh on that and we’d all received a “code of conduct” email from on high. Before today, I’d never gotten a damn thing.
A slender silver vase containing two roses graced the front desk. One rose was the darkest a purple could be without being black. My purple-loving eyes thought it was gorgeous. The other was stark white, all the whiter by contrast, the opposite side of lovely. But who from? The receptionist held out a black envelop. The writing was in pink gel-pen, girlish-looking. The card read, “Happy Birthday, lover. Don’t leave the building alone.”
“I’m supposed to make sure to hand this to you personally, and to tell you not to leave alone,” the secretary said, unknowingly repeating the whole idea.
“What!? Who said that? What did they look like?”
“It was the guys who dropped this off, around noon. I was supposed to wait till close to the end time of your shift to give you this,” she gestured at the vase, “and then tell you what I just did.”
“What did these guys look like? Did you catch any names?”
I wasn’t sure whether to be excited or paranoid. Apparently, whoever they were, they were well-informed of my movements. My ex was far enough removed I didn’t think he’d hire a hit-man. Briefly I thought of Tasha, with her mischievous sense of humor and family connections. Maybe it was her. But what was up?
The receptionist was speaking. “…Both of them were tall. Definitely not from around here… maybe up to ski or something, that kind of crowd. Probably snowboarders, now that I think of it. That type. Anyway, one had long blond hair, really long. And a real potty mouth. Talked like an East-Coaster. Used to be on the phones myself, so I know what that sounds like: ‘Youse guys,’ ‘get in the cah,’ ‘Nointy-noin.’ "That kind of thing.”
"And the other?” I cut her off.
“Oh. Sorry. Uh, that one…he slouched. Kinda reddish-brown hair. And you should have seen the nose on him!” She snorted. That made me mad. I’m hardly a perfect specimen. I took the flowers and card and my leave.
Hm. My mind was going like a hamster in his little exercise wheel. I knew who they sounded like. Until recently, ‘cause it was just too silly for a 30-year-old woman to act like she was still in junior high, I’d refrained from posting pictures printed off the ‘Net in my cube. Since my diagnosis of cervical cancer a couple months ago, though, I’d started doing things fatalistically. And why not? If I’d done something so damn wrong in my life to be visited with this, then a little more self-indulgence weren’t going to make any difference. My monitor reminded me of my locker in ninth grade. Different guys of course. I knew, staring at the fuzzy likenesses, who they had to be. But how? And why?
