Iteration Pt 02

Spencer's life is crumbling around him. In a single weekend he loses his job, his girlfriend, and his apartment. The worst part is, he has no idea how any of it happened. Trying to get away from it all, he instead finds himself confronted with a horrific crime in progress. His intervention leads him to a visit from a strange being who offers him a mysterious gift which has the potential to solve all his problems.

This leads Spencer on an epic adventure through time as he tries to use this newfound power to live his best life and try to find love. Along the way he encounters the best and worst of humanity as he attempts to answer life's most important questions.

Author's Note: This is a novel which I've split into three easily consumable sections. For a bit of context, this novel was written in late 2020. All characters are over eighteen. Enjoy!

***

Chapter 6

{ 2018-07-15 }

In Spencer's haste to put the final nail in the coffin in his relationship with Crystal, he had neglected to do a bit of research that, in hindsight, would have been pretty helpful.

He had gone back to July of 2018 on a mission to prove Crystal wrong by wooing Ashley. He knew that it was immature. After all, Crystal would not only never know he had succeeded, but she would also never even know he existed. Meeting Crystal was still a few months in his future, after he quit this job and started a new job at the company where Crystal currently worked.

Despite this, Spencer was determined to see if Ashley was, in fact, out of his league. Perhaps it was nothing more than a futile and stupid gesture, but he felt it to be a moral imperative. After all, he had been friendly enough with Ashley in his past. He had been the one to introduce her and Crystal. Perhaps this was enough of a foundation on which a relationship could be forged if he could get over his appalling history of cluelessness when it came to women wanting a relationship with him.

Spencer's oversight came in the form of showing up for work the first day after his latest return to the past to find Ashley did not work there. He had done a little digging to confirm that the issue was not a former employee. This meant he had simply overshot his intended landing time. He searched his memories trying to remember the first time he met Ashley. It should have been easy considering how startlingly attractive she was, but no matter how hard he concentrated he came up with nothing concrete. At length, he decided he could not remember anything earlier than a Halloween party where she had a worn a costume the partners in his firm would have called scandalous had they not all been trying to fuck her.

Spencer tried to travel forward in time to October which produced unquestionable proof that his time travel was one way, not to mention a painful wound which took weeks to heal. Left with no alternatives but to wait for her arrival, or give up this portion of his quest altogether, he decided on the former. Spencer was appalled at the life he had led. He tried not to be too angry at his former self. After all, he'd only been divorced for a few months and perhaps letting himself go a bit had been at least defensible. But as Spencer looked at himself in the mirror, he promised himself he would not waste this golden opportunity. After all, he weighed twenty pounds less than he had in 2020. He started a routine of going for long walks every day after work as well as cutting out breakfast and desserts. By the time Ashley joined his firm in September, he had lost another ten pounds and felt better than he had since college.

He had also spent those months growing a stock portfolio. Strategic investments based upon these exhausting hours of memorization had allowed him to grow his few thousand dollars in savings to a six-figure number. He knew from his past that Ashley was a big fan of the trappings of success, so he had rented an upscale apartment that cost almost half his salary. He had also leased a Nissan GTR, which was preposterously impractical but was quite fun to drive and turned heads everywhere he went.

Spencer's asshole boss caught him off guard the day after Labor Day. Spencer tended to get to work at the crack of dawn and leave around three. This meant he was in the middle of his workday when he was interrupted just after ten in the morning.

"Hey Spencer, we've got a new hire in the Business Development department and I'm showing her around. Ashley, this is Spencer. He's one of our architects."

Spencer's throat went dry and his heart began to race. It was

she

. After all these months of waiting and preparing, his moment was finally here. He spun around his desk chair and was floored by the sight of her. She was about one hundred and sixty-five centimeters tall with long, straight brown hair. Her body showed no trace of fat, but she was also neither skinny nor muscular. Instead, she had achieved the perfect balance point between the two with a firm, rounded ass below an impossibly narrow waist. Her D-cups breasts were clearly surgically enhanced, sitting high and proud on her chest but still somehow showing a hint of jiggle as she moved around. Her face was the only part of her that did not scream sex, being cute rather than hot and featuring an easy smile and piercing blue eyes.

As Spencer reached her eyes, he read an accusation there. He realized he had spent an uncomfortably long time checking out her body after being introduced. She folded her arms in front of her breasts and made sure to keep the half-height cube wall between them. Spencer had yet to speak a word and he had already crash landed with Ashley.

Spencer smiled at Ashley and introduced himself, but the damage was done. Ashley looked anywhere but at him, even preferring to look at Spencer's creep of a boss instead. As soon as they left him alone, he surreptitiously took a pocketknife from his laptop bag and headed for the restroom, making sure to verify the date of the prior day before he got up.

{ 2018-09-02 }

"Hey Spencer," his boss interrupted, although this time Spencer was anything but surprised. "We've got a new hire in the Business Development department and I'm showing her around. Ashley, this is Spencer. He's one of our architects."

Spencer stood up, successfully avoiding checking out Ashley's spectacular body. He smiled at her and said, 'Welcome to the team."

His boss said, "I was hoping you could give her a rundown of what the engineering group does and introduce her to the team. When you're done, bring her back to my office and I'll help her finish."

Spencer bit back his crass comment as his boss walked away but Ashley was not so restrained. She watched Spencer's boss retreat back to his corner office before saying, "That guy could

never

help me finish."

Spencer chuckled and responded, "Hey, don't knock it 'til you've tried it. He's quite the gifted lover."

She put her hands up to her mouth and said, "Oh, my goodness. I'm so sorry. I didn't realize you two were together. I feel like such a fool."

"Oh, no. I'm not gay. I was just..."

"Hey, don't worry about it. I think it's great that the company is so accepting of LGBT employees."

Try as he might, Spencer could not change Ashley's mind about his sexual orientation. At the end of the tour around his department he dropped her off at his boss' office and made a beeline for the restroom while muttering, "Ok, so go easy on the sarcasm."

{ 2018-09-02 }

"That guy could

never

help me finish," Ashley remarked disgustedly.

Spencer chuckled and responded, "Hey, don't be put off by his 'pedophile in a soap opera' looks or the way he repeatedly invites you to sit at his desk and then stands next to you so he can look down your blouse. I'll bet that underneath that profoundly creepy exterior, he's got one or two genuinely OK qualities."

She laughed out loud and placed her hand on top of Spencer's. She whispered, "Does he really try to look down everyone's blouses?"

"Well, certainly all the ladies. I haven't caught him doing it to me yet, but he's very clever. I could have missed it completely."

"You're funny. Maybe I should hang out with you to make sure none of the creeps around here hit on me."

"Madam, I am at your service."

She said, "Thanks. I don't doubt they hired me for my looks. They basically interviewed my boobs. But I really want to prove I'm more than just something flashy they can bring to sales meetings. I won't look like this forever, you know."

"'Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety.'"

"Huh?"

"Oh, nothing. Just a quote from a little-known author named Shakespeare."

"Are you calling me stupid?"

He said, "What? No, I was just..."

"I'll have you know that I've read all of Shakespeare's books. I've got a degree in communications so that's basically a requirement."

"But Shakespeare didn't write books."

She said, "Now I know you're calling me stupid. You know what? I think I've learned all I need to about your department. Don't bother getting up, I know my way back to the boss' office."

{ 2018-09-02 }

"Does he really try to look down everyone's blouses?" Ashley asked with genuine concern.

Spencer said, "Well, certainly all the ladies. I haven't caught him doing it to me yet, but he's very clever. I could have missed it completely."

"You're funny. Maybe I should hang out with you to make sure none of the creeps around here hit on me."

"Madam, I am at your service."

She said, "Thanks. I don't doubt they hired me for my looks. They basically interviewed my boobs. But I really want to prove I'm more than just something flashy they can bring to sales meetings. I won't look like this forever, you know."

"Don't sell yourself short. You're undeniably beautiful but, have you met the rest of your department? Jeff is in Business Development and I don't think anyone would call him beautiful. Your department is about bringing in revenue and that takes brains in this economy. They wouldn't have hired you if they didn't think you'd excel in the role."

"You really think so?"

He said, "I know so. This company is completely results-oriented. But perhaps I can help you impress our corporate masters. When is your first sales meeting?"

"Tomorrow. It's with the head of IT for the local school board. We're trying to land a contract to modernize their...something-or-other."

Spencer winced internally. Bringing Ashley along to a sales meeting for a potential government contract was

absolutely

about her looks. The sexagenarians who were in charge of the IT shops for public funded organizations were notoriously corrupt. The only thing they responded to, other than kickbacks, was eye-candy like Ashley.

He said, "That's a tough one, Ashley. We've been trying to get that contract for six months and the head of their IT shop is a kind of a creep. Despite what I just told you, I wouldn't be surprised if, especially for this client, someone like my boss, who isn't necessarily the most admirable person in senior leadership, suggests that you, how should I put this, dress up a bit. I know he is especially desperate to get this contract. See if you can stop by my desk sometime this afternoon after three. We can go over the deck my department put together for your meeting tomorrow, so you're as prepared as possible to win this on merit rather than looks."

She put her hand on Spencer's forearm this time. She looked at him at length, as though she were trying to make a decision. She finally said, "I really appreciate this..."

"Spencer," he provided.

"Spencer. I won't forget again. I'll see you this afternoon, unless they have something else planned for me then."

Spencer and Ashley spent three hours that afternoon going over the proposal. Ashley turned out to be reasonably well versed in business generally, but her specific knowledge of IT was rather lacking. She frequently got lost in the quagmire of competing technologies and why the school system's existing infrastructure was such a risk. Spencer ultimately settled on filling up several pages of a legal pad for her. When they finished, they were both famished and Ashley accepted Spencer's invitation to dinner.

As he walked her out to the parking lot and they approached his car, she said, "Is this your car?"

"Yeah. Do you like it?"

"It's gorgeous. What is it?"

He said, "It's a Nissan GTR."

She made a face like she had bitten into a candy bar that had gone bad. "A Nissan? I thought it was, like, a Ferrari or something."

He opened her door and, through a Herculean effort of will, avoided taking a peek at either her cleavage or her upper thighs as she climbed into the low-slung seat. Before he closed the door, he said, "Would you believe me if I told you that this is faster than a Ferrari? At least, some of the Ferraris."

She looked contemplative as he closed the door. When he climbed into the driver's seat, she said, "No. I wouldn't believe you. I'm not trying to insult your car, Spencer. I'm sure it's great. It's just, my brother had posters of cars all over his bedroom walls. Ferraris and Lamborghinis and the like. But he never had a poster of a Nissan."

Spencer looked over at her as he pushed the ignition switch. The twin-turbo V6 roared to life, causing Ashley's eyes to widen a bit. He said, "How about a bet. We go the long way to dinner, and if you don't think that this is in the same class as those other cars when we get there then I'll promise to prep you for your sales meetings for the rest of the year."

She said, "And if you do change my mind?"

"Then you let me take you to dinner on Friday."

"But you're already taking me to dinner tonight."

He said, "True, but tonight is kind of a work thing. I was thinking of something completely separate from work where we could get to know each other better."

"Sounds like 'heads I win, tails you lose'."

When he glanced over at her she was smiling warmly. He drove sedately to for several minutes until he reached an office park that was just nearing completion. This time of day it was typically completely abandoned. He continued to drive slowly along the mile-long boulevard which ran into the heart of the complex. He hoped Ashley wouldn't think he was taking her somewhere to do something terrible, but her expression seemed to hold somewhere between curious and excited. When he reached the end of the street he slowly turned around in the roundabout and then came to a stop. He flipped a series of buttons and switches to engage the launch control and then looked over to Ashley.

He said, "Are you ready?"

She said, "For what?"

He said, "To gain a whole new respect to Japanese engineering. Hold tight."

He built up the boost until the dashboard light came on and then he released the brake. Ashley remained quiet for the first few seconds but as they passed one hundred kilometers per hour she screamed, "Oh my god!"

Spencer kept going until they hit two hundred kph and then he stomped on the brakes. One hundred and twenty-five meters later than had come to a complete stop.

Ashley said, "Holy shit! That was amazing! My boobs nearly flew out of my top when you stopped. How the hell can a car do that?"

Spencer said, "That's why I love this car. It isn't all about the wall poster looks, no offense to your brother. This car is just pure engineering bad-assery."

She said, "How fast were we going? Can we do it again?"

"Sure," he said as he began to drive back to the starting line. "We got up to a little over two hundred kph. Does this mean I win the bet?"

She smiled coquettishly and said, "Definitely."

As predicted, dinner was a mostly professional affair. They continued to discuss Ashley's sales meeting the next day. Spencer hoped he was putting her in a position to excel but he dreaded what either his boss, or the potential client, might do in the meeting.

When they returned to Spencer's car, and headed back to the office, Ashley gave voice to Spencer's fears. She said, "You were right, by the way. Your boss said I should dress

nice

for the pitch tomorrow. He said it would be a shame if I didn't use every weapon at my disposal."

Spencer said, "What a scum bag. Did he at least look you in the eye when he said it?"

"Yeah, although it was clearly a struggle for him. He did just like you said, he kept turning his monitor around and then coming around to stand behind me while he went over things. How does the company put up with that?"

"He's the CIO's cousin. And no one has ever been able to make a complaint stick against him. Like today, he didn't tell you to wear a low-cut top. He said something that, in print,

could

look completely innocent. That's his secret."

She said, "So, what do you think I should do? Should I whore it up to stay in his good graces?"

"My inclination is to say no, but its honestly difficult for me to put myself in your shoes. I've never had to wonder if my looks were a part of why someone valued me."

"Don't sell yourself short. You're a good-looking guy."

"Flattery will get you everywhere. I appreciate the compliment, although now I'm wondering if they slipped some psychedelics into your food. Back to your point, I think if you wear something super sexy tomorrow, that sets a precedent. You're a spectacularly beautiful woman, Ashley. I can't imagine anything you could wear where that fact would not be completely obvious. Just wear a conservative business suit and dare those assholes to say something about it."

At this point they pulled into the parking lot and Ashley directed Spencer to her car. When he reached it, he quickly hopped out so he could open Ashley's door.

She said, "Such a gentleman." She leaned in quickly and kissed him on the cheek before saying, "I'm looking forward to Friday."

The following morning Ashley seemed to make a point of stopping by Spencer's desk. She was wearing a conservative business suit which still did a fantastic job of showing off her breathtaking curves. It did not, however, show any cleavage as the white blouse she wore beneath the jacket was buttoned up to her neck.

Spencer quickly looked her over since he suspected she expected it. He said, "Excellent choice."

Ashely said, "Thanks." She inclined her head toward his boss' office and said, "He didn't seem pleased. I guess he was hoping for a bikini or perhaps nothing at all."

"I think it's perfect. You're gonna do great."

"Thanks. Both for the compliment and for all the help. I'll let you know how it goes."

Chapter 7

Spencer did not hear from Ashley again until the next day. She came into his cube and sat down with a sour expression on her face.

He hesitantly said, "How'd it go?"

"We didn't get the gig, although I can't imagine we ever really had a chance. The sexual predator that runs things over there was almost thirty minutes late and he showed up with a competing firm in tow to challenge our presentation."

"Ouch."

"No shit," she replied. "But at least no one said anything about my outfit when we got together afterwards to do a retrospective. The general consensus was that we never had a chance. Anyway, I have another meeting next Monday and I was hoping that you might be able to prep me some for it. I know I

lost

the bet, but I was hoping you could help me anyway."

"Sure, maybe we could meet up Friday afternoon and go over it before we go to dinner."

She said, "Sounds good."

The Friday afternoon prep session stretched into dinner. Spencer had secured reservations at an upscale local steak restaurant. Dinner was exquisite and their conversation was lively although the topic frequently returned to Ashley's upcoming presentation. At the end of the evening, Spencer dropped Ashley at her apartment, receiving another kiss on the cheek as he saw her inside.