Time for a Change

Lately Cheryl had felt so frustrated. Her roommate had moved out to get married, leaving her alone in the apartment - and to handle the rent all by herself. Her job had seemed promising at first - and she still really liked it, especially her boss - but she'd been passed over for promotions more than once despite glowing performance reviews.

As she sat at her desk that Wednesday morning, flying through the emails that were pouring in, she was thinking about the coming summer - it was the start of May, and she would need to decide soon if she was going to put in for some vacation time.

While Cheryl was thinking about taking a vacation she saw an "official" company email pop into her box. She read it quickly and saw that it was announcing yet another opening in the company - the kind of job that for some reason they always seemed to prefer filling with an internal candidate. The economy was getting better, her friends were getting raises, but for some reason it seemed as if she was stuck. She reread the email carefully before closing the message.

As the day got busier she kept thinking about the email. The posting had said that they wanted someone with great organizational skills, good analytical abilities, and "a way with people" - all things at which she excelled.

"I shouldn't be thinking about a vacation" she said to herself, "I should be thinking about moving up."

By that afternoon she had decided that she'd apply for the job - but that she'd do it differently this time - no more sending her resume off into a big pile somewhere, hoping that she would be interviewed. After all, she thought, her boss Roger was a senior executive in the company and should be able to put in a good word for her - it was the least he could after she had served as his Executive Assistant for three years.

On the way to work the next morning she decided that she'd pick up a second cup of coffee in addition to her own - one for Roger. When she arrived she dropped her keys and bag on her desk and stuck her head in his office.

"Can I trade you a hot mocha grande latte for a few minutes' worth of advice?"

Roger was at his desk. She noticed that he was wearing a neatly pressed grey suit with thin pale blue stripes, a crisp white shirt with cuff links, and a maroon tie with a subtle blue pattern. His head was tilted down at a report he was reading. She could smell the scent left behind by his cologne - a bit of spice in the air.

He barely looked up.

"Hey, sure, happy to help - and thanks for the coffee - my favorite." He still didn't look up, so she put the coffee on his desk and jumped right in.

"Roger, there's another opening for a manager - the kind of position they always fill with inside candidates - and I'm wondering if you could give me some advice."

She had his attention now. He looked up, twisted the cap off the coffee, pursed his lips and blew on the hot liquid. She watched him closely, looking at his face, noticing his mouth as he blew. He licked his lips after his first sip, trying to catch a bit of the froth from the steamed milk, and she lost her train of thought for a moment.

"Really? Wow. Listen, Cheryl, you are great, don't get me wrong - in fact, you'd be a stellar manager. But what the heck would I do without you? And besides, a position like this is at a whole 'nuther level - you have to really want it - you'll be getting emails at all hours of the night and day, you'd have to supervise a coworker, you'd have to deliver on the projects, on time, and on budget - unless there is a real fire in your belly that kind of thing can drive you crazy - it can eat you alive."

She didn't know if was a fire in her belly, but she felt something - maybe nausea -as her face flushed. She "didn't want it bad enough?!" He "couldn't afford to lose her?!" THIS is what three years of hard work and loyalty meant?

Cheryl wasn't sure if she should throw her hot coffee at him or argue with him, but instead of scalding or yelling she sat there and felt the air go out of her. She backed down as she usually did, thanked him and said "yeah, I guess you are right" and went back to her desk.

Despite what she had said to him she was angry, she was hurt, and she was frustrated. Her mind raced all morning. Why shouldn't she have a shot at a promotion? She knew the playing field wasn't always level, but couldn't understand why others got promoted and not her. Roger thought she was "indispensable?" He made it sound as if she were a computer or a piece of furniture. In fact, he seemed to not even notice her half the time.

She liked working for Roger -and thought he looked good in his suit, too, which made it even better - but wished he'd pay more attention to her and give her some serious credit. She had a four year college degree and had taken the admin job when the economy was lousy - she'd paid her dues and it was time to be recognized!

Cheryl had certainly see him "recognizing" some of the other women in the office, even though he was very professional - there was never anything too overt, nothing too obvious - but after working for the man for three years, day in and day out, she'd caught him more than once looking at someone leaving his office after a meeting. Well, not just "someone," usually a woman in a tight skirt. And come to think of it, a woman her own age.

Cheryl thought about the job opening all afternoon. It could mean so many things - a chance to move up, a chance to make more money, a chance to take that vacation and to keep her apartment without getting another roommate. Why was it so hard to just get a fair chance? She keep going in circles with her thoughts and decided to leave "early" that night, at 5:30 instead of 7, to think about things at home over a glass of wine. She was beginning to think she should just take charge of her life and quit and move someplace else.

She was about to snap off the computer when another official company email plopped into her box. Tomorrow would be "Super Casual Friday" to support the local animal shelter, Pet Paradise. If she signed up - it would only cost her $20 - she could participate in the fund raiser and be part of "Super Casual Friday" tomorrow. She felt like coming to work in her pajamas, she thought to herself - so clicked "yes," authorized them to deduct the twenty from her pay, and went home.

The next morning she felt a bit better about the whole thing - she knew she had to do something, but wasn't sure exactly what. It helped that it was Friday - and, as she looked thru her closet, she remembered that it was "Super Casual Friday."

As she thought about getting dressed Cheryl's first thought was to wear her t-shirt with the kitten on it, which seemed appropriate for an animal-related fund raiser. She held it up and looked in the mirror. "OMG no" she thought - "it makes me look like I'm sixteen."

She pulled out the red flannel shirt her boyfriend had left behind after they broke up. "Ugh, even worse, I look like a lumberjack's wife. No wonder Roger doesn't even know I'm there..." And then she started to smile..."indeed, no wonder he doesn't know I'm there..."

She opened her dresser and pulled out a thong, black and shiny, and laid it on the bed. Then she dug out her shortest shorts, the white ones, the same color as the shirts Roger seemed to favor. Just maybe, she thought, her black thong might show thru her white shorts, and she laid the shorts next to the thong.

Cheryl browsed through her tops...no...no...no...yes! Her thin pink tank top. She dug through her dresser again to find her black push-up bra, just the polite side of sleazy...under her pink tank top - she liked the way it deepened her cleavage and had a touch of black lace on the trim. She slipped off her robe and stepped into her thong, and then pulled the bra around her back.

She stopped for a moment to look at herself in the mirror, her black underwear like exclamation points against her pale skin. Roger would notice her now or she'd spill coffee in his lap! As she stepped into her shorts she looked at her shoe rack, and decided that to cover all her bases she'd bring her four inch heels to the office and change into them after she was behind her desk.

By the time she got the office Roger was already reading reports, as usual. She knocked on his door jamb again - "coffee this morning?"

Without looking up Roger said "Oh yeah, thanks Cheryl" and absent-mindedly extended his arm into the air in her general direction, waiting to have the cardboard container placed in his hand.

She walked over to his desk carefully - balanced on her heels, the hot coffee before her - "Here Roger, please be careful - I wouldn't want you to spill it on the paperwork." He looked up and she knew she had him. She watched as his eyes raked up and down her body, pausing here and there...she was sure they even got big for a second...and then he quickly caught himself.

"Wow, that's a different look for you...I mean, what I mean is, very nice, but a bit, well, ummm...different. But very nice. Isn't that against the rules though? Not that it should be."

She could tell he was vamping to make up for the fact that he was looking at her - at her body. She smiled at him. "Didn't you see the email? It is Super Casual Friday - for the Pet Paradise folks. When I thought about those poor kitties I just had to pitch in." She smiled at him.

He seemed to stammer for a second - something she had never, ever seen him do. "Oh yeah, umm right - I did see that, but I have a meeting at lunch and had to dress as usual."

"OK, well, I guess you guys in management do know what is best after all - I've got to get back to work in my cubicle - enjoy your coffee!" As she turned on her heels she saw that his mouth was open - he'd never heard her say something like that, and with her outfit it was too much for him to process.

As she walked from his office she could feel her toes...pushed down into the front of her four inch heels...she could feel her calves...tight and stretched from the shoes...she could feel her rear up in the air, pushed up by the heels...and she was almost sure she could also feel his eyes on her ass as she walked out, as if his fingers were lightly caressing her shorts.

She returned to her desk and sat down, flipping the switch on her computer to start the work day. As the machine beeped at her she felt a shiver, a good shiver, as she pictured how Roger had been looking at her. George from the mail room interrupted her daydream.

"Hey Cheryl, I have your mail." She swiveled on her chair to take it from him. She watched as George's glance dropped from her face to her chest, and realized that her nipples were hard and poking through her tank top. The very idea, that Roger had seen her like this and stared at her, that George was seeing her this way - it all made her shiver again, more deeply.

She thanked George and took the mail and swiveled back to face her desk, crossed her arms over her chest, and felt the hard buttons on her breasts against her forearms.

"Super Casual Friday" turned out to be better than most of the theme days at the office. It was a bit of a cross between a summer camp sleep-away and Halloween for adults. Everyone was finding time to get away from their desks to wander around the office and see who else had dressed down. Outfits ranged from sweatpants and comfy sweaters to tube tops and skinny jeans. As the day wore on, though, she started to worry: Roger had been in meetings all day, on the phone, or behind closed doors, and she hadn't seen much of him at all.

That afternoon, around three he buzzed her on the phone. ''Cheryl, I'm sorry, but the Batco Factory deal is falling apart. I've got a conference call at 4 that will run until six, and I'm going to have to mark up the contract afterwards. I need to ask you to stay late. I know it is Friday, but you know how important this deal is. I'll try to make it up to you. We can get you some comp time, or a spot bonus. Just let me know what you want."

She felt her shoulders slumping. She didn't have any plans anyway, and figured she could shop online a bit after catching up on some of her backlog.

Roger didn't emerge from his office until 6:30, after all of her coworkers had gone. She had finished all of her email and was online looking at vacation packages for the summer - she was thinking maybe a beach in Mexico, or Hawaii, if she could only afford it.

"I'm sorry it is so late." Roger held up a sheaf of papers. "My notes on this deal memo are a mess - indecipherable. I'm going to swing by the men's room, make a couple of copies, and you and I can go over it. Print me a clean copy in the meantime that will be our new master. I'll be back in ten minutes."

As Roger walked away she sighed softly to herself. Roger seemed, once again, to have forgotten that she was there. She pulled up the deal memo on her computer and sent it to print on the copier next to her desk. She pulled the copy and started re-reading it so that she'd be better able to make the edits Roger would want - she always did things like that, even when she was dead tired.

Cheryl became absorbed in her reading, and was fifteen pages into the document when she realized that nearly half an hour had passed and Roger hadn't come back. She looked up and across the cubicle farm: nobody.

She always got a little creeped-out being in the office by herself after work - she didn't mind it in the morning, when everyone would be arriving sooner or later - but at night, with darkness surrounding the office, and the odd clicks and hum of office machines and coffee pots...it made her uncomfortable. She wished she hadn't dressed like this - it didn't make her any more comfortable, and she felt chilly now that her coworkers had left.

She wished Roger was there, and decided to look for him rather than just sit there all by herself and worry. She walked down the hall, turned, and then walked down the next hall until she came to the Men's Room. She was talking to herself under her breath to calm her nerves. "Great, genius, what are you going to do now? Barge into the men's room?" But what if he was on the floor in there? She leaned over and put her head against the door and listened: nothing. She knocked on the door, feeling silly. "Hello?"

There was no answer. She debated going in, but that seemed weird - what if he was standing there against the urinal? She knocked again. "Hello?" Still no answer. She decided to go to the mail room and see if he was making copies. Down the hall again ten yards, left down the next corridor - she had walked it many times - and then to the steel door. There was a combination lock on the door - to protect the precious office supplies! - and she punched the combination and turned the handle.

She felt the cold air rush out to meet her as she pushed the door open. The copiers, the computer servers, the routers, the last remaining fax...all of it humming away, and it had to be kept cold. The company had installed special air conditioners to keep the room at 65 degrees all year long. And there was Roger, with his back to her, his hair sticking up, facing the giant Mimic 2000 copier, the company's latest acquisition. ("Guaranteed to increase efficiency and lower costs or your money back!")

He looked a bit of a mess - not only was his hair sticking up as if he had run his hands through it in frustration, he had unbuttoned and rolled up his shirt sleeves, and she could see the muscles in his arms flexing as he punched buttons on the console. Pages of Roger's document were scattered on the floor, a few more were in the copier's intake tray on top of the machine, and over the loud hum of the air conditioner, copiers, and fax machine she could hear him muttering to himself.

She smiled - it was almost cute, her boss helpless in the face of just making copies - and came up behind him. Her heels clicked on the floor but he didn't hear her as he kept mumbling and the machine clattered as it tried to suck in more paper.

Cheryl had to almost yell to be heard. "Roger, I can help you with that, let me do it!" He was so startled he jumped and turned around in one motion, falling back against the copier.

Now that she could seem him face to face he looked even more flustered than she had realized. His tie was askew, the top button of his shirt undone, and he had a bit of ink on his cheek where he had absent-mindedly poked himself with a felt pen during the conference call - probably more than once.

But she noticed that, as flustered and startled as he was, he was looking at her again - and he wasn't hiding it nearly as well as he did that morning. He weakly said "Cheryl, I didn't hear you come in" and she saw his eyes drop to her chest. The air conditioner in the mail room had made her nipples as hard as pencil erasers, and they were pointing right at him...like they had his name on them, she thought.

She felt a surge of self confidence - she knew what needed to be done. "Roger, it works like this." She brushed against him and started to gather the papers, taking pages from the intake chute on the top of the copier...she felt his bare arm against her side...and then she bent over to get the pages in the lower output tray. She felt like there was a spotlight on her butt as she bent over...and was sure that he was looking at her. She straightened up slowly, and shuffled the papers into a neat stack.

"So Roger, first you need to align the edges of your stack. You then select your output mode..." the machine beeped as she punched the display..."enter your department code...your client code...your work order number...and then press the big green 'Start' button." And with that the machine started vibrating and chugging as it started processing the copy job.

Cheryl turned around with a sense of triumph, and there he was - just staring at her with a look of amazement, gratitude - and something else on his face. When she played it back in her mind later she remembered that he looked hungry - that's how she would always remember it. At that very moment she thought "I can do a hell of lot more than make copies, and I DO TOO have a fire in my belly." She reached for him and kissed him; his mouth was already open, and her tongue slipped right over his soft lips.

He pushed against her. His weight made her take a half a step back in her heels, and for a moment she was afraid she would fall - but then she felt the copier against her ass, warm and vibrating. Something about the sensation of the vibrating machine on her ass shot a bolt of excitement through her, and she groaned even as she pushed her tongue deeper into Roger's mouth. Her moan excited him - she heard him, through their pressed lips, say "Oh god Cheryl, yes" and as he pressed against her she could feel his erection growing in his pants as the machine was shaking against her bottom.

For some reason her mind flashed back to their conversation that morning. "Eat me alive Roger..." Roger broke the kiss and started to kiss her down the side of her neck. She rolled her head back to bare her throat, and almost felt weak as he kissed her, glad that she was leaning against the copier. He went down, down further, and then she felt him pulling up her tank top, and then pulling down the cup of her bra, and his mouth was suddenly on her hard nipple, his teeth hidden, his lips grasping her small bud, and she felt like everything she wanted and needed was in front of her and that she wanted to take it.

She ran her fingers through his hair, over his ears, and then down his neck, feeling the taught muscles, his urgency, and then she felt all of him grow under her very touch. His muscles swelled, she felt his hands behind her and he was picking her up as he flexed, in the air, and then he put her down on the top of the Mimic 2000 copier and began fumbling at the snap on her shorts.