This story contains characters from other stories but is intended as stand alone.
All comments and feedback are gratefully received as I'm hoping the feedback will encourage improvements in my work. This is a work of fiction from the deep dank recesses of my mind and any resemblance to real people is purely accidental.
This story depicts sex between consenting adults, if this not to your liking, please visit some of my other submissions, otherwise I hope you enjoy.
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Mark would always chuckle to himself about the projects he was required to work on. He was pitched in to a group of strangers and expected to get them up to speed as soon as possible. He would always approach the first meeting with the view to categorising the customers team into three pots.
There was 'the grown ups' as he called them, and these had words like Director or Head of in their title. They would be the ones posturing and using big words they didn't really understand to make themselves look and feel important. The next group were 'the doers' who he would interact with frequently when on site and would be the ones he took extra care to look after. The final group were 'the worriers' who got scared that their comfortable little lives were going to be turned upside down by the project. He couldn't do a lot for these as it was 'the grown ups' in the customer who had made the decision to change how they did things although Mark would do his best to soften the blow as best he could.
There was a young girl at the customer that Mark hoped would be one of 'the doers' but turned out to be in 'the worrier' group'. Her name was Louise and Mark had observed her interaction with her colleagues. What captured his attention was her broad cheeky smile that she always seemed to wear until Mark went talking to her. As nice and friendly as he tried to be with her, she always seemed to be quiet and withdrawn with him, basically the opposite of her interactions he had observed.
It was a nice sunny day and Mark had stepped outside the customers office so he could make a call to a colleague who needed his assistance. He slowly paced around the perimeter of the building while the conversation continued and as he rounded the corner of the building, he came to an outside seating area that the staff used to take their breaks. Only one table was occupied at this time, and it was a single figure hunched over with their head in her arms; he guessed 'her' as it was in a floral dress. Mark turned back to the other side of the building to finish his phone call and when he stowed his phone away, he went back to the rear of the building and the individual was still there.
Mark was tempted to leave them alone but he guessed from the pattern of the dress that it was Louise and so he felt it best to enquire how she was. He went and sat on the seat opposite her and waited for her to lift her head. As she did and caught sight of Mark sat there, she jumped slightly and started to wipe her face and apologise "Sorry. I didn't mean you to see me like this."
Mark reached his hand over too hers to comfort her as she said "It's okay. Really. Tell me to butt out if needs be but I would like to offer my friendly ear if you need someone to talk to without casting judgement. You'd be surprised what conversations I've had with various customers over the years."
Louise gave a pained smiled and replied, "I would love to but... "after a moments pause said "... you're the problem."
Now this really floored Mark. He was here to help the customers with their problems, not add to them and so he asked "I certainly don't want to cause anyone to cry. What on earth have I done to upset you?" This time he reached his other hand to take both of hers.
After a few more sniffs and a blow of her nose in the handkerchief Louise replied "No, no. It's not you personally that's upset me. It's more the reason you are here and me being turfed out of the company on the back of it."
Mark looked concerned as he asked, "Who on earth would be foolish enough to say they were getting rid of you?"
Louise looked confused "Surely the reason you're here is to install new software that will make me redundant. Isn't that how it works?"
Mark smiled as the realisation that she had put herself in 'the worrier' camp. "Not at all. My job is indeed to get the company up and running on the new software but I'm here to HELP you rather than replace you. You are central to this whole operation. Without you staff don't get paid and unpaid staff become unhappy and unhappy staff get ugly."