Day 2
I woke up today with one word on my mind: information.
I needed information. I'd promised myself I would fuck a woman I barely knew. I had to find out something about her. Some way to talk to her again. Spend time with her.
I let out a little sigh of frustration, realizing that whatever Alyson was doing right at that moment, she surely wasn't thinking about me. I was just another face she'd met in Chris's office.
A shower helped me think. There were two people I could go to if I wanted to find out about Alyson. First there was Chris. If I was careful then I could get him to open up about his wife. Where they met, what she liked to do in her spare time, her favorite places, what music she liked.
The other potential source of information was Mike, one of my new colleagues. I knew he'd worked with Chris before, and Chris had brought him over when he started the new company. So he would have known Chris and Alyson before they got married. Of course, that didn't mean he knew very much about her, but it would be more than I had now.
The problem was, getting information out of Mike could be difficult. I couldn't get him drunk, because he didn't drink. I couldn't get into a late night message chat with him, because as he told us at work, he and his wife Maddie went to sleep at 9pm. Whatever I'd normally do to charm some gossip out of a man about his friend, it wasn't going to work with Mike.
I mean, if what he said in the office was true, he and his wife's main hobby was taking hundred-mile-long rides every weekend on their tandem bicycle. And birdwatching. Mike and Maddie. So wholesome.
Work was boring and I kept my head down and tried to forget about Alyson for a few hours. At the end of the day I made a special effort to leave at the same time Mike did, so at least I'd get a few minutes to chat with him while he walked to his car. The parking lot was the wrong way for me -- I'd normally be catching the bus -- but it was worth a chance. We made some polite chit-chat about how I was settling into my new job, and then I found an opening.
"How long have you known Chris?" I asked.
"Nearly ten years," he said. "I was fresh from college when I joined his last place. He gave me my first job. And then my second."
Mike was in quite good shape, I noticed. I'd never been close to him before. It must be all the tandem cycling. He wasn't bad-looking, quite appealing in a nerdy sort of way.
"What's he like?"
"Outside of work?"
"Yeah."
Mike looked at me. Shit. He knew. I'd given something away in my tone of voice, been too eager -- he knew I wasn't just chatting. Fuck.
"Chris is married, Cara." He paused, waiting to see if I'd caught his meaning. Of course. He thought it was Chris I was into. He wasn't thinking about Alyson at all. Thank God. I realized I could use his misunderstanding as cover.
"Oh come on," I said, pretending to get embarrassed. "Like you never had a work crush."
"I've never tried to fuck my married boss."
We exchanged a long look. Truth be told, I was a little taken aback to hear Mike say the word refer to sex as fucking. I would have sworn he was a "making love" guy.
We'd reached his car now, and he was standing by it, ready to get into the driver's seat. I could see he was waiting for my response, whether I'd play along or not.
"OK, you got me", I said. "I do want to fuck him. I just need to know how to get his attention. And trust me, Mike, once I have a guy's attention, the fucking part tends to happen pretty easy."
He smiled, amused at how well he'd manipulated me. "Fine," he said. "I can help you get to Chris. I mean really help. Not just telling you what movies he likes or his star sign."
"OK," I said. Now, of course, he'd name his price. He wasn't going to give away that information for nothing.
Mike looked me up and down, like I was an item hanging in a market and he was deciding on what I was worth.
"I don't really want to fuck you," I said. "It's nothing personal. You seem like a decent guy."
He laughed. "OK, OK. Don't worry. That wasn't quite what I was going to suggest. Listen, you trust me, right? I seem trustworthy to you?"
"I guess."
"So if I say I've got something really good to offer you, you believe me?"