When a viper had suddenly arrived at the California Computational Agency's back-end division as a bodyguard to its manager, it sent out ripples that reverberated through the whole agency. Who was this Clark Hopper, people asked, and why does he get an alien bodyguard? Was the viper there to keep tabs on them? Was ADVENT choking up on their leash? Was Clark some kind of alien sleeper agent? Was he the first of many to get replaced by an alien imposter?
Of course, as a whole three weeks went by without anything else happening, those ripples gradually died down, and the back-end division grew used to having Hssara as just another co-worker. The only person who still harbored conspiracy theories about her was Jeff, but that put her on par with six or seven other people in the office. Despite her monstrous appearance, she was kind and unobtrusive... except when it came to her human ward.
Over the past few days, ripples and rumors of a different sort had begun to spread through the office, passed over private texts and water-cooler conversations. It was hard not to notice the moony looks Clark and Hssara gave each other on a regular basis, or how the viper sometimes coiled around him when they thought no one was looking; Liam even claimed he'd heard a combination of ravenous sucking and stifled moaning as he was walking by Clark's office door, but no one had the gumption to interrupt whatever it was he was doing with his bodyguard. Everyone had their own theories, and for the most part, they were utterly correct: Clark and Hssara were thoroughly in love.
On one particular Friday afternoon, Clark was busy proofing the latest rollout of the gene clinic patient database, scrolling through code and annotations to ensure everything was spick and span. They'd managed to finish it a full four days ahead of schedule due to some inspired work from the team, and the program had practically put itself together once they made the pieces. All Clark had to do was sign off on it, but he felt obligated to at least give it a once-over before passing it up the chain.
However, obligation wasn't doing much to motivate him, and Hssara could tell his attention was beginning to wane. She slowly slithered up behind his swivel chair to get a second set of eyes on the code, set her scaly yet manicured hands on his shoulders, and began gently kneading Clark's tense shoulders. "How goes the coding?" she asked, knowing her lover was already thinking forward to what they had planned for later that night.
Clark couldn't help but relax under Hssara's skilled massage, and he leaned forward slightly to let her get at his shoulder blades better. "Oh, it's looking great," he sighed, "Kelly and Jay worked some real miracles with recursion, Paul managed to cut down the executable size by a few gigabytes, Rick only stole half his code from Github, and they all managed to work write-only memory into the mix." By the end, sarcasm was dripping off his voice, and Hssara couldn't help but see his devious smile reflected in his monitors.
"Is that just a bunch of techno-babble to make you seem busy?" she snarked.
"Pretty much. The only errors I've found are some nitpicky formatting stuff that ADVENT doesn't give a damn about, but just in case someone screwed something up..."
"Sounds like you could use a break," Hssara purred, "Wouldn't want anything slipping by you, would we?" Her thumbs began firmly working on her human's shoulders, subtly incentivizing him to lean over.
"Yeah... I could use a break." After pushing his keyboard and mouse forward, Clark leaned further over the desk, giving his lover full access to his back. She didn't hesitate to begin really working out his knots, and since she'd ground her claws down quite a bit, Clark didn't have to worry about tearing his shirt again. He let out a long, contented groan, but his mind couldn't help but return to the romantic evening ahead in the middle of his semi-painful pleasure. "Is ADVENT still letting us use the 'company card' for all this?"
"Mmhmm... I mean, all they have to do is cancel a prime-time ad or two." As Clark had found out when he and Hssara went to buy groceries, the viper had a sleek black debit card that tapped directly into a pool of ADVENT petty cash. The initial idea was for her to cover her own living expenses, but over the past month, they'd been testing how far they could push it.
Eventually, Hssara decided to directly contact her superiors, and after a swift conversation in the alien's language, she realized that the pool was effectively a near-bottomless coffer. Hssara still checked in to clear any purchases, but from what her superiors had told her yesterday, expenses between her and her human lover would get swept under the ubiquitous umbrella of propaganda. When you're a global, near-omnipotent government organization with fingers in almost every technological corporation, you can splurge a couple hundred dollars here and there.
"Perfect... bureaucracy at its finest."
"Did you double check the reservations?"
"Yep, did it this-" Clark let out a sudden gasp as Hssara hit a particularly troublesome knot, but as she worked out the tension, the gasp turned into a quiet moan. "Just did it this morning." Candlelit table for two at Il Macellaio Migliore at 6 pm, rated the state's third-best Italian restaurant. It had great food, good ambiance, and, most importantly, staff who were willing to accommodate an alien with a little government incentive. At first, Hssara had been a tad hesitant to go out on such a public excursion, but if anyone started complaining, ADVENT could just start chucking hush-money like they always did.
"Kolhossa..." A month ago, Hssara's only experience with candlelit dinners was a scene from a movie shown during "cultural assimilation night" back in Nevada... she never would've guessed she'd actually be going out with the guy of her dreams.
The viper continued her tender kneading for a few minutes until Clark had practically melted onto his desk, after which the human sat up and spun around to face her. "You want me to do you?" he asked, intending to give her sensitive hood plenty of attention.
"Actually, I think you're still a bit tense... just stay right there." Her voice dripped with eager playfulness, and her grin was devilishly wide, so Clark knew exactly what she wanted before she began slithering around his chair. After making a few rounds, she slunk her torso under the desk and pulled the chair forward, making it look like her human was hard at work to anyone coming in from the door.
Clark knew from experience just what she was about to do, but even though his dick was already hardening, decency compelled him to say something. "Don't you want to lock the door?" he asked, already knowing the answer before he finished asking.
"Eh, they don't seem to have much to bug you about," the viper replied, hands already reaching for Clark's zipper. "And even if someone barges in here pointing fingers... they can sue me, as you humans say." With that, she deftly unbuckled his belt, popped his waist button, unzipped his fly, and began inching his slacks down his legs. Once she'd gotten them a little way down, she followed up with his boxers and slid both garments down to his ankles.
