Discovering Staircase C

This is my 2nd story. Like the first one, the events in this story are also factual. I hope you enjoy. Happy reading!

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Very few things in life will cause a man's pride to suffer more than finding himself unexpectedly without a job, a means to support his family. It's a sick feeling that doesn't go away. Every day of unemployment deepens the feeling of dread. It's a physical glooming, like being punched in the gut every morning, a deprivation of self-worth. It doesn't matter how supportive the wife and kids are. Pride is a tricky thing. Once taken away, only the pride-stricken man himself can restore it. And the way to restore it is by finding a new job. Being the bread-winner again.

This is the situation where I found myself in 2009. Laid off from a good job. My name is Joe. I have a wife and 4 grown kids, 2 of them just out of college, the other 2 were about to start. In 2009 I was 48 years old and liked to consider myself a well-rounded man. I enjoy a geek job by day, when I'm actually employed, and working with my hands in the yard and garage on weekends. Not the typical nerd. I'm athletic, play in a softball league, pickup basketball games. Tall and somewhat rangy, I have salt-n-pepper hair, mostly salt, blue eyes, always smiling. Love to swim and stay in shape. And I can be a little too prideful.

By trade, I'm a software test manager. I started out as software developer in the late 80s, but didn't like being confined inside a virtual box of bits and code. The part of my job I enjoyed most was testing my code, testing the associated applications, and testing code that other developers produced. I like breaking things. Always have. I also like software technology. Combining those 2 things led me down the path of my career. I learned myriads of software tools that bent, stretched, and eventually broke software applications. It was fun. Geeky fun, but still fun to me.

Living in the suburbs of one of the 5 biggest technology cities in America, there never seemed to be a shortage of companies who could use my services. I led teams of application testers in the pursuit of software quality assurance. I saved companies money, sometimes a lot of money, but the savings had to be derived through statistics and projections of software bugs, production issues, a reduction of hours spent by developers fixing bugs, and the ability for companies to push their software products to market quicker because of this. I wasn't actually earning money for companies.

The oil and gas industry fell on hard times in the late 2000s. Companies downsized and cut corners to save money any way they could. Software testing was an expense. A luxury. A non-revenue bearing workstream. So this is how I found myself laid off one day from a really good gig, and it took 7 months before I found a new one. I networked my ass off while unemployed. I worked as hard or even harder at finding a new job than I did while actually on a job. As it turned out, I didn't find a new job. The job found me.

In the span of one long but fulfilling day, I was called by a technology lead for a global consulting firm, interviewed on the phone, in person, and received an offer that same day. Just like that. Seven months of soul-searching, pride-wringing, finances-fretting, and it was entirely alleviated within 8 hours. I thanked my lucky stars.

The very next day I reported to their downtown office, and was immediately sent to the client site for which I would potentially be working. Through the expedited interview process, I was told that the client had to approve me for their project. If their decision was negative, I would be let go. Simple as that. Fortunately, the client loved me and wanted me to start with them immediately. Huge sigh of relief. I returned to the consulting office to finish the paperwork process. I was to report directly to the client site the next day to begin work on the project.

I was hired to be the test manager for a very large public sector project to design, build and implement a new city government court case management system. The system was to be an end-to-end software application configuration, starting on one end with the software processes behind officers issuing tickets, warrant checks, through the entire judicial process, jail, release, and everything software in-between. A large team of consultants, myself included, teamed with dozens of subject-matter experts from the city in a co-development effort to design the software architecture and applications. The project was located on an entire floor of a city office building. Every inner wall was removed to promote an open project collaboration. The project was scheduled to last 5 years and it proved to be the most fun, most interesting, and greatest learning experience I've had in my career.

I became engrossed in the project, truly loving every minute of work during the lengthy 2 year architectural design cycle. Once software development started, code being slung, new faces were brought into the project to assume various key roles. Since I was the test manager, I needed to know every single aspect of the immense system functional behavior, as it was being built. All of the functionality needed to be documented from end to end, so a team of documentation experts was brought in. I was elected to work with the documentation team, since I knew the most about what they needed to capture. I was to spend 2 hours every morning with the 4-person team, then we would split up and do our stuff for the rest of the day. They would produce the documentation, I would work with my team of testers in validating the system behavior.

The docs team was made up of two men and two women. They were professional, courteous, very sharp, and seemed to be extremely good in what they were hired to do. We made a good, dynamic group for the time we spent together. I would walk them through a piece of system functionality that I projected onto a smartboard screen, showing them all the possible routes a user could take through the system, answering their questions, and they would go off and create the user manuals and technical manuals and whatever else they needed to document. We got along great together. We worked hard but we also joked around, had fun, kidded, and really enjoyed our working relationship. Of course we got to know each other personally too.

One of the guys, Lawrence, was married for a long time and although he was deeply religious, still shared some risqué humor. The other guy, Tavares, was younger and engaged to a lovely young lady. He was kinda quiet. The team lead was Gretchen, who was in her mid 50s and obviously very much in love with her husband; pictures of the two of them scattered around her desk. She talked about him, their children and grandchildren every chance she got. I envied her for her life happiness. And then there was Kelly.

I felt a physical attraction to Kelly almost right away. Where I was tall, 6'2", she was short, barely 5'0", if that. The top of her head was well beneath my chin. I'm not skinny but more lean than muscular, with broad shoulders, around 205 lbs. Kelly was not thin but not at all unappealing, weighing around 140 very sexy lbs. Lovely shoulder-length auburn hair, big beautiful blue eyes, a gorgeous round face, plus-sized derriere that looked so sensual when she moved, and really large boobs that stood out on her short frame. She wore pretty dresses that displayed just a hint of cleavage, enough to make me wonder what the rest of her looked like. Kelly, like me, was married, but her home was 200 miles away. She took the job on the project because it paid nearly twice as much as she'd ever earned before. She rented a small apartment downtown that was a quick cab ride to our project office and took the 'superbus' home after work on Friday late afternoons, returning Sunday evenings. Kelly was around 10 years younger than me, but her spouse was a dozen years older. She spoke fondly of him although I could tell something was missing in their relationship. She could probably see something absent in my marital relationship too. I think we're both emotionally transparent.

Everything on the project was picking up steam. It might have been running a little bit behind the projected timelines, but that wasn't due to lack of anyone's effort. I'd been on the project for around 3 years by this point. Still a devoted family man but becoming increasingly frustrated in my marriage, primarily sexual frustration. Intimate moments with my wife Janet had just about completely disappeared. In the past 3 years it felt like we'd had sex at most a dozen times. It was probably less than that. Nothing spontaneous at all. She just wasn't interested. I didn't suspect her of having any extracurricular bedroom activities. She had entered menopause, complete with frequent hot flashes that made her at times truly physically miserable. My heart went out to her in her misery, but I was still very much alive, with strong physical urges. We were down to what I like to call milestone sex: birthday, father's day, anniversary. It was obvious that she didn't even enjoy the experiences anymore. She did it for me, a sense of wifely duty. I appreciated it but at the same time felt empty and hollow, unfulfilled.

So here was Joe, now entering his early 50s, still with a very robust libido. Not exactly a perfect bedroom match with the wife anymore. Oh, but we used to be. A dozen years ago we still had sex 2 or 3 times a week. Spontaneous. Sometimes crazy. But those days were gone and likely never to return. I still loved Janet and would not leave her. She's a good person, a loving and caring mom, just not into sex anymore. I still had my desires, and frequently found myself fantasizing about Kelly during my moments alone. I wondered how soft her lips were, what her touch would feel like, how her large breasts would feel in my strong hands, how hard her nipples would get if I paid attention to them, her big beautiful ass, how wet did she get when she was aroused, if she moaned when a stiff erection slid between those gorgeous globes on her chest, oh yeah I fantasized about Kelly every chance I got. This was not healthy considering we worked so closely together. She made it even more difficult on me because she came over to my workstation often to ask questions for which she needed the answers to plug in gaps in her documentation. She'd lean against my desk and I'd look up into her big blue eyes, notice the sensual swell of her breasts, get teased by her cleavage, smell her tantalizing perfume, and had to fight back inner desires to just grab her and kiss her. Fortunately Kelly's desk was on the opposite side of the floor from mine. I was really grateful for this because the distraction of having her nearby all the time at the office would have been more maddening than it already was.

I knew that Kelly smoked sometimes, even though she used mints after to mask the smell. It wasn't too noticeable so it wasn't particularly displeasing to be close to her. And we worked closely together. Every morning when we had our knowledge sharing sessions, she sat next to me. A teeny bit closer than might be appropriate but not too close for anyone else on the team to notice or gossip about.

The city project office was located in a part of the downtown district that wasn't exactly upscale. A large homeless shelter was just a couple blocks away. At just about any point of the day, if you looked outside you'd see anywhere from 1 or 2 to several homeless folks milling about or briefly resting under the large covered area in front of the office building, seeking shade from the often sweltering sun. One afternoon Kelly came over to ask a couple questions. She seemed tentative, unhappy, which was really unusual for her. When I asked if anything was wrong, she said that she had to visit the building security office earlier that day because a couple of homeless men harassed her during a smoke break outside at lunchtime. This got me pretty riled up, so I told her I would be her 'bodyguard' on her smoke breaks if my schedule permitted. Just swing by and get me and I would join her outside. This is when the business relationship between Kelly and I started to turn into something more than just that.

I joined Kelly outside for 10 minutes every mid-morning, lunchtime, and mid-afternoon. Conversations between us flowed freely while she smoked. My attraction for her became agonizingly strong. I could tell she was attracted to me too. Her big blue eyes didn't hide many secrets. I wondered if she fantasized about me the same way I did about her. I suspected she might. Perhaps even stronger. It was just her behavior around me. When we were outside, she scooted right up next to me so we were touching, side by side. She shared intimate secrets with me. She and her husband stayed at a nudist resort a couple times a year. She asked if I ever did anything like that. When I said no, never, she looked me up and down and said I would look good there. Then she batted her eyes and smiled. Gulp! One day after taking a long pull from her smoke, she looked right into my eyes and said she had an oral fixation. I froze for a moment and she started giggling. She enjoyed teasing me, tickling my mind's passion spots. But our relationship stayed professional, except during her smoke breaks. Neither of us acted on what we both felt, even though the electricity between us crackled like crazy. I think we both knew our not-so-innocent flirting would escalate someday. It was only a matter of when. And how.

The project office was on the 4th floor of the city building. It was an older building, not ancient, but far from a gleaming structure. One day the building elevators were broken. A few people who truly depended on the elevators and weren't able to climb one of the 6 staircases were forced to telecommute. The majority of us were okay with climbing and descending the staircases. It was time for a smoke break. Kelly and I had to decide which of the staircases to use. She suggested the staircase at the farthest end of the project area, away from most of the floor traffic. Staircase C. We walked downstairs and could hear people on other staircases through the inner core of the building, but ours was deserted, other than the 2 of us. We used the same staircase once we came back inside. Again, it was deserted. I think she noticed this too. We were really in sync by this point. Very close during her breaks, our breaks, flirting whenever we got the opportunity. Thanks to the broken elevator, opportunity was knocking.

We shared her lunchtime smoke break via Staircase C. We walked side by side down and then up the stairs. Walking very slowly. You could feel the tension, unbearable. Work was so challenging. I was lusting for Kelly in my mind constantly. It took too much effort to do my job some days. Around 3pm she sent me an email that only said "Staircase C?"

"Yes, when?" I sent back.

Only a few seconds elapsed before I received her reply, "Now." We'd never done anything like that. Something had changed. The escalation had begun.

We met at the staircase entrance at the same time, and both glanced around to see if anyone was looking in our direction. No one was in sight. We went inside the door and listened, it was empty except for the two us. We could hear the muted conversations and echoed steps from other staircases. It was as if our movements became choreographed. We were of one mind. Instead of walking side by side, I preceded her by one step. I reached behind and took her hand in mine. We hadn't held hands before. We walked like this down the staircase till we were between the 2nd and 3rd floors. I stopped on the landing between floors and turned around. Kelly still had to look up at me, even though she was one step higher. Eyes filled with a deep longing, her arms went around my neck, mine around her waist, and our lips touched for the first time.

I had fantasized about this moment for months and months, wondering how her lips would feel against mine, but the actual reality was infinitely better than any fantasy. Her lips were so soft and yielding. Her tongue slipped inside my mouth, and so did her moans of passion. Instantly, we were kissing with incredible passion. She was pulling my hair, her lips pressed and moving against mine, her tongue searching with hunger and need. My hands moved down to her big beautiful ass, surrounding her, grabbing her through her dress. It felt like she was going to fall against me. We both struggled with balance in our embrace. We moaned, kissed, touched, grabbed, swooned, and who knows where this might have led when we suddenly heard the metallic echo of a different staircase door open and close. The sound snapped us out of the spell we had both fallen under.

We looked at each other and burst out laughing. What the hell were we doing? We were at work, in a CITY building, not a private sector building but a public building. Who knows what would have happened to us if we'd been caught in our embrace? But for that amazing moment we were both consumed with lust. Primal lust. Now we both knew what it felt like to kiss, to touch, to need, to feel, to hunger. We both wanted more. It was obvious that what we'd started, what we'd shared, was just the beginning. The ride had started, but where was it going?

I resumed our previous connection by taking her hand in mine, turning to continue walking down the stairs. Kelly asked me to wait. I turned back to face her smiling eyes. She took a tissue from her purse and wiped her lipstick smudges from my lips. We both giggled like teenagers and headed downstairs. We found our favorite spot in the shade on a metal city bench. I noticed Kelly's hand shaking just a little bit as she lit her smoke. We were both shook up from the intensity of that special moment. I don't recall if we both said "Wow!" or "What the..." or whatever we said, but we both knew that this was something that wasn't going away. It was only going to get bigger. Somehow. Some way.

We reentered the building and 'our' staircase. It sure felt like our private staircase. A person had to walk past 2 other staircases when they entered the building before they reached the door to staircase C. It was ours, and we definitely made it ours. Oh hell yes, we made it ours. The trip upstairs was a repeat of the one downstairs, except Kelly led me up the steps, one hand in mine. When she stopped at the same mid-floor landing and turned to face me, we made out again like hormone ravaged twenty year olds. I pulled Kelly into my frame. I could feel her breasts against my chest, her hands in my hair, around my neck, on my shoulders, searching, pulling. My hands moved all over her back and bottom, pressing, needing, hungering. After a minute or 5 minutes or 10 minutes, the passage of time didn't seem to exist in our embrace, we broke our kiss, not because we wanted to, but we both knew we had to, considering our circumstances. Like last time, she dabbed my lip with a tissue to remove her lipstick residue. I looked into Kelley's eyes as she did this. Flames of desire still inside. She lightly bit her bottom lip, repressing hidden urges to continue what we'd started. We continued upstairs and walked out onto our floor and into the project beehive of activity, where we tried to pretend our professional best that nothing out of the ordinary had just occurred.

The next couple of hours went by quickly and then the workday was over. I walked over to say goodnight to Kelly but forgot that she had already left for the day. She left just before 4:00 on Fridays to catch the early bus home. I sighed and headed home for the weekend. It was Friday and I wouldn't see Kelly for a couple days. I tried to act like everything was normal over the weekend. I did my usual stuff. Yardwork. Washed the cars. Cleaned the garage. My 2 boys were my shadows, helping me with everything like they always did. Took the family out to dinner. Snuggled with the wife while watching a movie late in the evening. Inside my mind, I was thoroughly distracted, but I tried hard not to show it. I made it through the weekend without giving away my thoughts, anticipating what the next work week would bring.