"How's your ox tendon?" Lynda asked John, smiling across the table.
"Best ox tendon I've had all day," he replied, wiping his face with his cloth napkin. "And your spicy eggplant?"
"Pretty spicy," she said. She reached for her tea and had a sip. "Maybe a little too spicy. I guess it's right in the name, though!"
"How long have you been at Maxon?"
"Oh, since college... it was the first job I got out of school. I guess eight years now?"
She had a nice smile, he thought. He glanced at her hand and saw the wedding ring he was sure would be there.
"And I hate to ask," he said. "Maybe I should know... but what exactly do you do for us?"
"Good to know my hard work is being noticed!"
The two of them laughed.
"Well, I do some bookkeeping... I manage the internship program, of course, you know that from the other day. I pay the bills to the vendors, and I am the person that the submitted hours for employees go to for payroll. I cut the checks. Oh, and I water the plants around the office, but not the ones down where you work, I guess, since your ficus died."
"Was it a ficus..."
"Anyway, I guess I should have watered that too. Poor plant." Her eyes gleamed. She is very alluring, John was thinking. "Now your turn."
"Just run of the mill IT work, you know," he dug into his rice. "It used to be more about the networking and desktop support, now of course we are all involved in security upgrades, which always needed to be done, and here we are."
"And you came from... Iowa, was it..."
"Close- you got the Midwest right, anyway. I'm from Nebraska- Lincoln, to be exact. Nice town. It's a usual story, I came here for college, fell in love with a girl from college, got an amazing exciting job that was going to build a life around me and girl from college with, girl from college and I break up, and here I am."
"Sorry to hear that."
He shrugged.
"It was years ago," he said. "We became friends afterwards. It happens."
"Sure."
"And you? Married, I think? Kids?"
"Married," she replied. "I'm Mrs. Alex Wainwright. No kids yet. We are 'in discussion' about that- maybe soon."
"Yeah," he said. "I'd like to have a kid someday."
"I'm sure you will."
"Who knows. My life is boring. Nothing much ever happens one way or the other."
"Aww. I think things will heat up for you very soon," she smiled, passing the jar of hot chili sauce over his way.
Man, he was thinking. She's really something. This is fun. Maybe I should check my OKCupid profile again.
Do people still use OKCupid, he wondered?
He spooned some hot sauce on his ox tendon.
Just enjoy a fun moment with a fun person, he told himself. Things will work out.
***
Frank removed his jacket, tie and dress shirt. None of them were going to be able to be worn for the rest of the day, not after that crazy bitch wiped his cum all over them. He wadded the soiled clothing and threw it on the floor.
What the fuck was
that
all about? Was she just hanging out in the stairway waiting to jack off somebody from the C-suite?
That wouldn't have completely surprised him, actually. Frank had noticed over the course of his working years that a lot of women- and girls- did whatever they could to get ahead in a corporate environment. In fact, he had come to depend on it, come to cultivate it. And like any good predator, he was able to isolate the weak from the rest of the herd, to seek out the most vulnerable to his predations.
Just ask Morgan, he thought. Little baby doll never knew what hit her. She was eating out of my pants faster than almost anybody. She was either more desperate to be fucking a powerful man, Frank thought, or he had just gotten so good at chasing them down that she never stood a chance.
He stripped off his undershirt.
But it felt a little different with this Lynda chick, though. He felt quite a bit more like the prey for some reason. He didn't like that feeling- and anyway, he didn't need more than one set of wet holes to get his dick into in any one particular job. That was a strong rule of this- only one work girlfriend at a time.
She was probably just crazy, he thought. He'd seen that sort of thing before.
Better steer clear.
He reached into his drawer and found a slate gray golf shirt. Some swag he had probably been given at some bullshit convention or another, something with a dumb logo on it from some company he never heard of.
That'll have to do.
He slipped it on. It was tight... age had put on a little layer of fat over Frank's powerful frame. He'd always been muscular, always been powerful, stocky and strong. His wide chest was starting to be eclipsed by his belly, though.
He put his other clothes in his briefcase.
He made his way out of his office and over to the stairs. When he got there, he hesitated at the metal handle.
What if she's in there, he thought. What if she's always in the stairs now?
What do I do?
He opened the door and went down the stairs.
One of the fluorescent lights was going out, buzzing and blinking the way they died. It cast an eerie light over the stairwell.
But she wasn't there. Thank God.
Frank made his way down to the Bowels, where the geeks lived. Yelling at John Claire would put a smile on my face, he thought. Make that faggot sweat and shake, get shit back on track.
Frank opened the door of the IT staff's offices.
He shuddered... he remembered his days doing IT before he made his way into management.
You'd think shit might have changed a bit.
But no. It was the same dingy cubicles, the same plastic chairs with insufficient padding. The same hot plate, the same microwave that needed cleaning. A water cooler, worn down industrial carpeting.
Everything somehow yellow under the cheap fluorescent lighting.
Over in the corner was some sad plant someone had tried to grow down there, dead and brown at this point.
Why didn't they throw it out, Frank wondered. Did they think it would spring back to life like some fucking Lazarus or something? Maybe I'll yell at Claire for leaving dead fucking plants around.
One of the techs looked up in surprise.
"Mr. Abruzzi!" he announced, louder than he had to, like a monkey chattering from a tree about the arrival of a jaguar. "How are you, sir? We weren't expecting you!"
"David," Frank said warmly. "You know what, I don't get down here as often as I should. I used to do IT... I miss it, a bit."
He didn't miss it one bit.
David stood up like an idiot, a tall, gangly man with out of fashion long hair and a scraggly beard.
The kind of person you keep underground, Frank thought.
But the man was standing there, gawking, so Frank reached out and shook his hand firmly.
"Is Claire in?"
"What?"
"Claire- John Claire. Works with you?"
"Oh! Oh, yeah. No. He went out to lunch with a woman from accounting. I forget her name- Laura?"
"He went out to lunch?"
"Yeah. Chinese or something. No, wait- Szechuan. That's it. They went out for Szechuan. Was her name Laura? That's not it. Lucy? The woman who signs out paychecks. You know?"
The man was babbling.
"Do you mean Lynda?"
"Lynda." David said, nodding. As if the matter was settled. "Yes. She took John to lunch. Szechuan."
"No shit? I didn't know they knew each other. Are they friends?"
"Uh... you know, I don't know. I mean, maybe."
Frank leaned forward, a head taller than the other man, still holding David's hand in a firm grip.
"David, let me ask you," he said lowly, evenly. "Are they
fucking
or something? On company time?"
"Uh... I mean... I... I have no reason- "
Frank let his hand go, laughing out loud.
"I'm kidding! I'm
kidding!"
"Oh!" David said with relief.
"So, David, I wanted to come by and congratulate you on getting past phase one with these security upgrades. I'm going to talk to the whole team, but I wanted to tell you that I know you've been working as hard as anyone on this has been. I know the delays weren't your fault. Right?"
"My fault?"
Frank leaned forward again.
