Henry Morgan flicked off his desk lamp and shouldered his black Armani laptop case. He turned to face his office window, taking in the shimmering sea of lights that was Manhattan after dark. He sighed deeply. This view was one of the few true pleasures in his life. He enjoyed it often, as he never left work before dark, and often arrived at the office before true dawn.
The light in the outer office, where his assistant worked, suddenly came on, flooding through the open door and turning Henry's window into a mirror. He grimaced. He knew he was not an attractive man, and he resented his reflection's intrusion into the calm moment. His clothing was impeccable, as usual, due to the fact that he employed a very expensive tailor and allowed the man complete control over his appearance, from his rectangular steel blue eyeglasses to his glossy brown wingtips. But the priciest haircut in the world couldn't disguise his thinning, mousy hair or his bulbous nose, hollow cheeks, and thin lips. At least he had avoided a beer gut thus far, no mean feat at forty-two. A passion for climbing and rappelling, nurtured over the past twelve years, had kept him in decent shape, but his lanky frame betrayed no hint of muscle. Despite the designer suit and the Rolex, he still looked like what he was—a nerd. A computer geek. A loser.
Henry turned to find his personal assistant, Daniel, standing in the doorway.
"Excuse me for interrupting you, Mr. Morgan, but I wanted to remind you that today was my last day working for you. I wanted to thank you... um... thank you for the last two years. I've... learned a lot." The thanks was clearly insincere, a meaningless social nicety. Henry said nothing. "Anyway, sir, your new assistant will be here at eight o'clock sharp tomorrow." Daniel stood uncertainly for a moment and then turned to leave. As he exited the outer office, he looked back and said "Her name is Melissa, by the way."
***
Henry accepted the keys from the valet and climbed into the front seat of his jet black Porsche Cayenne. He tried to keep his hands from shaking as he pulled smoothly into the late evening traffic. A female assistant. He couldn't work with women! Ever since he had touched his first Apple II at the age of fourteen, his primary interaction with the world had been through pixels and coding. In high school and college his few friends had been exclusively male. For nine long years he had worked alongside both sexes in a typical office environment and he had never become accustomed to the presence of women... their perfume, their hair, their curving figures under demure business suits.
The confusing, awkward interactions with female co-workers had contributed to his decision to quit his job at Sony twelve years previously. Every aspect of office work had been agony for Henry: the forced camaraderie, the group projects, the open-door policy. His boss had repeatedly passed him over for promotion, ignoring his twelve-hour workdays and choosing employees who were "team players." Finally putting enough in savings to quit had been one of the greatest achievements of Henry's life. It was a pleasant surprise to find that he had inadvertently built a reputation as a brilliant, creative programmer, and Digitech, Sony's key competitor, was more than willing to offer him a high-paying position complete with a private office and a work environment free from... other people. The one exception was his personal assistant, a position that for the last twelve years had been filled by a series of driven, ambitious young men, who were willing to match Henry's punishing work schedule for a year or two in exchange for being placed on the fast track to success at Digitech. He had never gotten along with his assistants. Even the friendliest had reminded him of the arrogant jocks and frat guys he had known in college. He was sure they all judged him, mocked him. He made a habit of maintaining a coldly civil professional relationship with them all.
And this girl would be no different, Henry decided. Why should she be? It wasn't as if he was frightened of women... he was no virgin! His sexual history was different than that of most men his age, perhaps, but it was certainly as extensive. He felt a tension building in his groin as he remembered. His first bedroom experience had come when he was a sophomore in college, courtesy of the kindhearted class slut. She had taken pity on him—or perhaps lost a bet, he would never know—and invited him into her dorm room one evening for a few hours. He had been shocked when she came on to him, but not too shocked to respond. She had sucked his cock with enthusiasm and expertise, and then patiently taught him how to reciprocate. At the time, he had been ashamed of the loveless, superficial encounter, but compared to his subsequent experience, it now seemed sweet, innocent, almost pure.
As a recent college graduate, Henry had found the work world unbearably stressful and boring. When a college acquaintance invited him to a frat party, he jumped at the chance to leave his adult life behind for an evening, conveniently forgetting all the reasons he had avoided such parties throughout his college career. His supposed buddy never showed up, however, and Henry was left wandering through the loud, overcrowded rooms of the frat house, pounding beers and speaking to no one. Eventually, he wandered upstairs in search of a bathroom. Having successfully completed his business, he decided to stay upstairs, where it was quiet, and he drifted drunkenly down the hallway, checking out the various rooms. He opened one door and was startled to see a beautiful, unconscious coed, lying on her back across the bed.
