Company outings are usually just an excuse to take an afternoon off from work, but occasionally they can get interesting, especially when people lose their inhibitions.
***
Chapter One: Unrecognizable.
"I don't usually drink," said the woman in the passenger seat, and the voice was just as slurred as it had been when she said the exact same sentence a half hour ago.
"I know," I replied, keeping my eyes on the road and being extra careful, because even though I had very little to drink and would pass any breathalyzer test, the last thing I wanted to do was to have to do stupid human tricks on the side of the road for a state trooper. Not when I had something much better in mind. "You told me that before."
"You must think I'm a slut," she said, and even though the word 'must' came out as 'musk', I knew what she meant. "Going back in the woods with you like that."
"No," I assured her. "If I did, then I guess I would be a slut too."
"That's okay," she said, patting me on the thigh and giving it a little squeeze. "Guys are supposed to be sluts."
At the red light, I glanced over at the woman beside me, and although I had worked with her for the last five years, she was unrecognizable to me. The petite blonde who was always so prim and proper in the office had vanished about a half dozen beers ago, and had been replaced by a somewhat dazed and disheveled version of Ms. Diane Romano.
Her blouse was rumpled, and it was lucky that it was a loose fitting top because otherwise it would have revealed that her bra had been nudged up and was no longer doing what it was intended to do. That was my doing, I'm afraid, but it wasn't entirely my fault. My hand was invited under the blouse of Ms. Romano by the lady herself back in the woods, and what kind of man could refuse that kind of invitation?
Finding myself driving Diane Romano to her house on a Friday afternoon was not something I had planned on doing when the day had started. What had started as an innocent company picnic at a charming local spot that specialized in clambakes and the like had become something far more interesting, and how it came to pass that I was pulling into the driveway of the beige raised ranch of the office manager is a story in itself.
**
Chapter Two: Picnic table confidential.
"I'm 55," Diane Romano had announced to me at the picnic table, and the information startled me for two reasons.
The first reason was that I hadn't asked her age. She had simply blurted it out when I returned to the table with a couple of cups of beer. The others in our group were up dancing to the usual standards like the Electric Slide and the Chicken Dance, and when Diane passed on dancing, I was happy to stay with her.
The second reason was that I had figured her to be at least 10 to 15 years younger. She had a very young looking face, with only the slightest signs of age showing around her eyes and neck, and she had a very petite and girlish figure. One that I had admired from afar at work ever since I had started there.
Ms. Romano ran the office, while I was pretty much a grunt in the warehouse despite being a foreman, and although our paths would sometimes cross, there was something about the relationship between the office and the warehouse personnel that suggested that we laborers weren't exactly as good as the office folks were in the social order of things.
I guess that was what these outings were intended to do; break down the walls and have us all intermingle. Diversity is our strength and all that jazz. For me it had been a welcome afternoon off from the daily grind, and a couple of years ago it had become very interesting for me as I had found myself in the nearby woods with one of Ms. Romano's staff.
Something about alcohol that breaks down the inhibitions of some people, and it certainly had that afternoon. Why else would a married woman with four kids drag me back into the woods and practically rip off my clothes before screwing me like an animal? What an experience that had been!
"Well, you don't look it," I replied, while my eyes took in the view from across the table.
Diane's blonde hair was cut short, and she wore glasses that were apparently designed to make her look as plain as possible. The short-sleeved blouse she wore was shapeless, and her arms were pale and slender, as were her legs, exposed in the shorts she wore. She wasn't so much skinny as she was tiny and petite, and since at work she always wore clothing that pretty much covered her from neck to toe, seeing these little peeks of flesh were a revelation of sorts.
"Diane? You okay?"
The voice came from behind me, but I didn't have to turn around to know that the voice belonged to Rachel Berry, one of Diane's staff members. I tried not to cringe as my worlds began colliding, while Rachel moved to the side of the picnic table.
"I'm fine," Diane said with a wave of her hand. "Go do the Hustle, or whatever that is."
"Okay," Rachel said as she cast a somewhat scornful look at me while trying to show concern to her boss. "Join us if you want."
"Sure," Diane said, and after Rachel had left Diane muttered one word. "Bitch."
"Ouch!" I said.
"She's probably jealous," Diane said, giving the revelers out on the concrete dance floor a look of disdain. "Maybe she thinks I'm trying to get you to do what you did to her a couple years back here."
I jumped a little at that, since Rachel was the woman that had taken me back to the woods here that day, and I was stunned to learn that Ms. Romano was aware of the incident. I hadn't said a word to anyone about it, so there was no one else that it could have come from.
"Didn't think I knew about that?" Diane said with a giggle, and the sound seemed out of place coming from her.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Can't say as I blame you though," Diane said looking at Rachel dancing with the others. "I was going to say something like what's she got that I don't have, but that's obvious, isn't it."
I knew what Diane was talking about, but liked the way the conversation was taking a more interesting turn, so I decided to see how drunk Ms. Romano was.
"You mean the accent?" I said innocently, referring to the remnants of the southern accent Rachel had, but Diane shook her head and gave me a knowing look.
"You know what I mean. The boobs," Diane said, nodding over to where Rachel was doing her best to garner the attention of the rest of the dancers by shaking her considerable bosom around flamboyantly. "Must be nice to have breasts."
"Breasts are nice, but a tad overrated," I suggested.
"I don't have any," Diane said, stifling a burp. "Breasts. I'm flat chested."
"You don't look it," I said, and although the blouse she was wearing made it hard to tell, I knew she was small on top. "Besides, what's that saying? More than a handful is a waste?"
"You've got big hands," Diane said, reaching over and taking my right hand in her two hands, rubbing it while glancing around to see if anybody is watching. "Even if you didn't, I still don't have a handful. More like a mouthful."