System Crash

Gene sucked at his teeth as he poured over yesterday's numbers. They were quite high, and Philip had asked for a report explaining the sudden change. Usually they were in the double digits, representing a normal day's use of the computer system's library. But for some strange reason yesterday's enormous use of the file server caused a crash. He had determined why just a few short minutes before it had actually occurred, but he was getting overtime on this and made himself seem busy. Walking everywhere he moved quickly and with a purpose, furrowed brow, and a determined concerned look painted on his apathetic face. Everyone gave him some space, and no one of the usual crowd asked him stupid computer questions. After seven years in the "IT" sector, it was essentially the sole perfection of his entire career. The appearance of being busy while hiding the apathy inside. Masking the harbored anger for lazy people using him as a crutch; and the contempt of their much greater salaries.

He stretched up in the cubicle, as close to an office as he would get in this company, and stared for a few moments at the holes in the ceiling tile. '14,428, 14,429…' he thought to himself. "Getting to you?" Came a quiet voice from the un-walled section. He started in surprise, and turned his head at the voice. It was Arienne. "The sever crash yesterday sucked," she began, almost pouting. "I lost almost a day's work" She leaned a hip on the side of the cubicle, her skirt making a subtle swishing noise that faded into the background of typical office static.

"Yeah," was all he could respond with. Damn, he hated her. Her good looks, her dusty blonde hair and perfect plump, lush lips. He hated her studded green eyes, and seemingly perfect skin, albeit a little pale. Most of all he hated that women like him would not get with men like him. She even smelled perfect, causing his baser instinct to raise its sinuous head and stare, to want her and she probably knew it, too. He knew that he would not be considered by a woman like him. His skin wasn't perfect, it was prickly and hardly shaven uniform. His aging hairline was running away and taking his once teens-and-twenties-thick hair with it. He was 28, Arienne was 22 and just out from university. She was physically fit, a perfect specimen of human fitness, whereas his own body was starting to get softer and his forearms a little skinnier.

He put on his busy face again, and Arienne left without another word, gratefully. She took her own cubicle, one down to the right (where the a/c pointed her perfume at him). He sucked his teeth again, and made a few changes to the server remotely. Of course it responded perfectly, and reported the change was successful.

Some time later, only a few minutes, and it happened. From the corner of his eye, Philip was heading in his direction, looking at him. He must have noticed that the file server had crashed. Just now. No warning, it just crashed. He smiled to himself, one little change and so many things changed. He could already hear the groans and curses, the hands banging on the desks and monitors. Ah, a chaos, yes, but his chaos. His change, his control. He successfully fought back the smile he wanted to bestow upon his boss.

"It's down again," he said sternly. "What do you need to fix this permanently?" Philip's nasal-like voice strained under the massive weight he was carrying and he paused after every second or third word.

Gene appeared thoughtful for a moment, then responded. "Well," he began, "If it's the problem I think it is then we'll need a new hard drive, about two hundred dollars." He turned in the chair and stood, pointing his body in the direction of the server room down the hall. He kept his eyes on Philip, for emphasis.

"Fine," he said flatly. He didn't care either. "So long as it doesn't happen again. Will you need anyone else to assist?"

Gene hadn't noticed, but Arienne was standing beside Philip, appearing slightly disgusted at her supervisor, "I can help, if you'll let me." She jumped in.

"Fine, whatever, you need your basic computer use rating anyway." He waved his hand as he turned laboriously and made his way to his office.

"It was going to say no," Gene said, still with his busy face on. "I scheduled your tutorial for next Monday morning." He began walking down the corridor, wondering how he was going to fake a problem that he could get her to buy.

"Oh, Gene," she said waving her hand in the air at his arm. She fell into step beside him as they walked, and her smell wafted over to him as the new guy walked past in a fury of morning coffee and photocopies. He smelled of sweat and nervousness, but Arienne smelled…well she smelled like a woman smelled. The right kind of woman, and her perfume wasn't there. He must have imagined it before, he thought, and drank deeply in her woman scent. The natural sweat of moving around in poorly air conditioned building, combined with the smell of freshly laundered and pressed clothes. This mingled with the sound of her breath and the skirt as it moved effortlessly between her legs as she moved. Almost graceful really. He felt a little intoxicated from her smell and sound. He revelled in it until they got to the sever room, when he realized that with the sounds of the incessant fans and computers that he would never taste it.

He unlocked the door and they entered. As soon as the door closed, "I know the file server went down because you told it to," she said, moving her hands behind her back. She looked to her feet and seemed to fidget nervously. "I saw you input the shut down command." She said that much quieter, but a new steele was in her voice that wasn't there before. She new how to work the server, she just never let on.

"Sometimes you just need some time alone in the sever room," He decided to say after a long pause. She nodded in understanding, no longer fidgeting. "I hate it in there, too noisy and too many stupid questions from the lazy ones who don't bother trying to learn about their computer." He realized he was ranting, and coughed nervously into his left fist. He shuffled over to the file server. "I don't need to actually take you through the tutorials do I?"

"No," she said, and followed. She went close to him, and her side brushed up against his upper arm as she did. A shock went up through and then out into the rest of his body. Immediately he was aware that she wasn't looking at the equipment, but him, intently at him. He slowly looked at her, hoping to see an angry face devoid of compassion for him. "I." she said.

"What do you want?" He said, her hot breath stroked his check and neck.

"Something real." She said raising her arm to his chest, stepping into his arm and leg. He could feel her heat, he melted into it, and was dizzied. She kept him up, and failed in fighting back her smile.

"I'm too real," Gene said, preparing himself and his breadcrumbs to get lost.

"I like real, I need it" She said, locking her gaze with his. He began to lose himself in her eyes and all thoughts of laying down crumbs were lost. He threw them away. "I."

Quickly, "I hate you," whispering now.

"I hate us too, sometimes." She said as though confessing to a stranger.

"Yeah."

She glanced to the door with her head, keeping her eyes upon him. "The door." A silent question, obsolete in its own asking.

"Automatically locks. I'm the only one with a key," Gene paused, "Save for night security." An answer, equally obsolete.

"Okay." She nodded with her shoulders.

She continued looking up at him, over a full head taller than her, the breath from her lips drawing him into her. "What do you like doing to people you hate?" She knew, he knew as well, what he wanted. Just one of those rare confluences of thought that occur between people.

What light there was in the windowless space came from the monitors, two desk lamps, and four well-placed ceiling lights. This afforded Gene with few views of shadows, save for the corners of the room. He looked away from her to the nearest corner, the one with the door nearby, her back to it. He saw in the shadow her form, and his. Mingled, the same. It was shaped differently now that he had turned to face her, to the door and to the corner. Her soft breasts and stomach pushed into his chest and stomach. He found there a quiet aching need. Akin to a hungry child.

The shadow changed, became larger at the bottom, as she slid her body down his own. She gently held him, and kissed his stomach then his abs. Then his belt buckle. It came undone, as if air had done it for him. An afterthought really. His pants were down, and his legs goosepimpled in the air conditioning. "It's kinda cold in here," he coughed.

"S'ok." She said, her mouth full of his underwear. She was on her knees, and she bent to the floor with them in her mouth taking them slowly down. Her hands were busy with other things, warming him up. Her hands were warm, soft, and supple. He eagerly took it all into him and accepted it, and responded accordingly. He risked a look down again, she had his underwear to his ankles now, with his pants. Her arms cupping him, encouraging him, and giving him strength. He stifled back a gasp of awe as it looked as though she almost turned her arms backward.

Slowly, "Oh," she whispered, as she looked up. Her mouth was slightly open, the tip of her tongue resting saintly on her lower lip. Her velvety green eyes looked not into his own but at who he truly was. "I."

"Its ok," Gene said, "It's a normal one, not—"

She interrupted. "I like it." She kept her mouth almost completely still. "I'm used to teenagers."

"Oh," he said. He took it as a compliment.

She arched her back as he raised her head, which seemed only to move up rather than toward. She stood on her knees, then, for a short time. She worked her hands for him, bringing him to his fullness. Her hot breath urged him on, challenged him. Her tongue darted out and introduced itself intimately with him. It began at the top, in a slow passionate kiss. The kind reserved for weddings. A subtle kiss of a promise that affirmed the ceremony and promised a great future. Her left hand found the base of him, and the right found his best friends. She slowly spoke to him then, in his entirety, from top to bottom and side to side.

He sighed, then. A new life was beginning for him. He looked away and at the shadow, and saw they were still together.

Arienne, now seemingly satisfied of her knowledge of him, opened her mouth to accept him. She kept her tongue on the bottom of him, her large lips now introducing themselves. Her heat burned, and he took in a sharp breath. She didn't hold back, slow down, or ask for forgiveness. He took the heat and added it to his own, she took in a sharp breath through her nose, accepting his own heat. She did not stop until her lips were acquainted, and her mouth. Finally, her throat closed on him with the same force his father used to clap old friends on their shoulders. The force of her passion was so that he bent over as if struck in the stomach. She smiled through him and kept him there, locked.

Later, he would remove her clothes gently to avoid wrinkles, and hang them on the desk so that they would remain smooth and floor-dust free.

The server did not come back up for a full two hours that day.