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 As nice and friendly as he tried to be with her, she always seemed to be quiet and withdrawn with him, basically the opposite of her interactions he had observed.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."
After a short pause to let his words sink in Louise's expression started to change and so Mark pressed on "I'd go as far as to say that various people will be shown little bits of the process that will make their lot easier whereas you will see it all which means the new way of working will actually cement your position here. You are actually central to my plans; in fact, I'd go as far as to say after this is up and running you'll have grounds to be bashing the 'the grown ups' doors in demanding a pay raise. Without you this project is going nowhere."
Louise looked shocked as the penny dropped and wiped her eyes once more "You mean I've made all this up in my tiny mind and worried about it for weeks for no reason?"
Mark nodded and replied "I'm afraid so. As I said you are pivotal to my work here and so without you the whole thing grinds to a halt and let me assure you if you need any topic reiterating after any of the training sessions, I'll happily take you through them on a one to one basis. Any concerns you have at any point can be thrashed out and if you prefer to talk them through away from your colleagues I'll happily hold back after they've gone, and we can go through them then. Now have I said enough to you to underline how much I need you bought into the project?"
Louise jumped up and came around to Mark's side of the table where she leant down and threw her arms around his neck and buried her face into his collar bone. He could just make out a muffled "Oh yes thank you. I can't say thank you enough. You've made me feel so much better."
Mark stood up expecting Louise to disengage from the hug once the height disparity came to light as Louise was a good five inches shorter than him. As it was all she did was relax her arms so that he could stand up straight which meant her face was now buried in his chest. Trying to break the ice Mark commented "Part of me is glad you got upset seeing as it got me a hug" while he still held her in his arms.
Louise gave a small chuckle and wiped her eye as she replied "Life would be better if people gave more hugs. I'm sorry about all this. Your words came as such a relief, thank you so much. You've made me so happy." She then proceeded to put her arm back around his neck.
Mark came to the conclusion that she wasn't about to let go of him anytime soon. Not that he minded as she was very attractive if a little young for his tastes. He had admired her beauty from afar and she had one of those smiles that accentuated her full cheeks while disarming him, effectively making sure you ended up doing exactly as she required. She had a nice curvy figure too although she rarely wore flattering clothing, it was hard for her to hide her curves. Unfortunately, as he was processing all of these qualities while holding her, the front of his trousers started to tent, and he ever so slightly pulled his hips back so it didn't freak her out.
As it turned out, she did feel the movement against her lower stomach and her mind's eye presented a mental picture of it just as he stepped back, and she quite liked the image presented. Nothing more was said about their conversation and the rest of the day progressed normally until the office emptied as everyone went home. The only two remaining were Mark, who was still tussling with a configuration option, and Louise who was looking busy doing something or other until Mark sat back in his chair and fist pumped at having resolved his issue. As he stood up to stretch his back Louise made her way over to him and said "I know you said we'd move on, but I just wanted to say thank you again for your words earlier. I've been walking on cloud 9 all day today and it's all down to you."