"I'm sorry, Aaron," Evelyn Chamberlain said, looking up from her work. Her narrow, Asian eyes were hidden in the reflective glare in her glasses. "That kind of access is very restricted."
I grimaced. I had not expected anything more out of this request. As the head of IT for our office, Evelyn was a stickler for procedure and strict adherence to rules.
"I understand that, Evelyn," I replied. "Believe me, I do. But this is a project I am working on for Jack Warren."
"Well," Evelyn said, seeming to reconsider. "If Jack signs off on it, I suppose I could give you some temporary administrative access, but that's about the best I can do. With all the concerns about identity theft and the personal information we keep on our database, the board of directors is pretty insistent about security protocols."
I shook my head. "That's not going to work," I muttered. "Jack is gone on another one of his retreats overseas, and he wanted this done by the time he got back next week. Come on, Evelyn, you know me. I am not a dishonest person, and I know all the procedures to make sure that our information stays secure."
"It's out of my hands," she said, but I could tell I was getting to her. Her small frame shifted uncomfortably in her chair, and she set her eyes back on her monitor. "Now, if you'll excuse me. I have a lot of work to do."
"This is my only shot, Evelyn," I said, desperate.
"What?" she asked puzzled. "What do you mean?"
"If I don't get this done for Jack, I am going to be stuck working for Desiree forever. I will never get out from under her, and you know what a bitch she is," I explained.
Evelyn nodded and smiled grimly. Desiree's reputation was renowned throughout the company.
"Although I hear she has a soft spot for you," Evelyn replied, her face trying hard to hide a blushing smile.
It was my turn to give a befuddled expression.
"What is that supposed to mean?" I asked.
"Nothing," Evelyn replied, but her enduring smirk said otherwise. I began to feel warm as the suspicion that my reluctant affair with Desiree had become public knowledge. "Just that she seems to like having you in her office quite a bit."
"It is hardly a sign of favoritism. She grills me about every little aspect of every one of my projects," I said. I was actually impressed with my ability to effectively lie on the drop of a hat. "You have no idea what it is like to be so micromanaged."
"Mary Ann used to be the same way," Evelyn replied, referring to her old boss.
"So you know how it is. So what do you say, Ev?" I pleaded. "Just let me look at the activity logs for just a couple of hours."
She shook her head, turning her attention once again back to her computer. She began typing.
"How about this: you can watch me do it and make sure everything is on the up and up," I proposed.
"Even if there weren't inherent privacy issues with that," she replied, "I can't afford to set a precedent like that. If I do that for you, then I have to do that for anyone who asks, and that defeats the whole purpose."
"You won't have to do it for anyone else, because nobody else will know," I argued. "Besides, I am not like everyone else. You and I are friends, right?"
"Oh, don't go playing that card!" she said, laughing.
"I introduced you to Frank," I reminded her.
Her husband of two years had been on my softball team and after getting to know Evelyn, I knew they would be a great fit.
"And I appreciate that," she said. "But it does not obligate me to break rules and risk my job for you."
"Of course it doesn't obligate you," I replied. "But it is just an example of the kinds of things that friends do for each other. You know, we help each other out. We are there to lend a helping hand when the other is in need."
"Well, what would I get out of letting you do this?" Evelyn asked. Suddenly, her tone had changed. Was it possible I had worn her down at last?
"The satisfaction of knowing you helped out a good friend?" I suggested.
She shot me a wry look. "Try again, hotshot."
"Okay, how about lunch?" I asked. "Wherever you want. Nothing is too good for my kind, giving, beautiful friend, Evelyn."
"Lunch is the best you can do?" she asked, cocking an eyebrow at me. "You buy me lunch every other week, anyway."
"But you wouldn't have to buy me lunch the following week this time," I said, smiling. "You see, it's very different."
"What you are asking for goes well beyond lunch," she said.
"Well, what do you want?" I asked.
She hesitated, and the conversation had suddenly grown awkward. Evelyn was cute and homely. Her body was thin, but well toned from her strict regimen of swimming. Her ebony hair fell just above her shoulders.
She always dressed conservatively, and her parents, who had immigrated to the United States from South Korea, had brought her up with discipline and a sense of ethics and dedication rarely found in this day and age. She had told me on several occasions that she had always been the quiet girl in school until she found herself in her final year of college.
It was not the first time I thought of Evelyn in a sexual manner, but it was the first time I actually thought it might be a possibility. It certainly seemed to be what she was dancing around.
Still, she was married, and Frank was a good guy.
"There is some stuff around the house that Frank needs some help with," she said at last. "Some home projects: putting furniture together and painting and that kind of stuff. I tell you what: if you help out Frank, I will get you what you need."
"Deal," I said quickly. It was not what I was hoping for, but if a little elbow grease and hard physical labor was what would get me out from underneath Desiree, both figuratively and literally, then I would do whatever it took.
We made plans for me to come over to their house that evening. As soon as I got off of work, I drove home, changed into a T-shirt and athletic shorts, swung by Cindy's apartment for a five-minute quickie (Alicia was at the library working on another paper; presumably she was doing her own work this time), and then headed to Evelyn and Frank's.
I knocked on the door and Frank answered. They were just finishing dinner, and I shook Frank's hand and walked inside.
Their home was dimly lit and decorated with Asian adornments that I assumed were Korean. It was neatly kept, as I would have expected from Evelyn, and smelled of spicy chicken and soy sauce. Evelyn was quite the cook: Sara and I had been over to their house a few times for dinner. Evelyn herself was in the kitchen, washing the dishes.
"Hey, Aaron!" she called, poking her head out from the kitchen. "You ready for slave labor?"
"Whatever it takes to get into those logs," I said back.
"Don't worry about it," Frank said, rolling his eyes and smiling. "We aren't gonna be doing anything that labor intensive."
It turned out that Frank was a big liar. We started on the roof, where we patched up some shingles that had worn out. We then hit the kitchen, where Frank needed help moving one refrigerator out to the garage, and moving another from his truck out front into the kitchen. We hooked it up and got it running, then did the same for the old refrigerator in the garage. We loaded some beer into it for later, then moved on to the living room.
Evelyn, dressed in a white T-shirt and red shorts that showed off a good deal of her muscular thighs, sat in a papasan and gave Frank and I instructions on where to move different pieces of furniture. She seemed to enjoy barking out instructions, and changed her mind often. Frank did not seem to mind, but my back began to do some barking of its own.
At some point, however, the A/C kicked on, which was a welcome relief. Frank and Evelyn apparently preferred to live in a sauna, and I was sweating my ass off. Evelyn was seated directly under a vent, and I noticed that her nipples began to stand erect through her shirt. I would steal glances at her chest every chance I got, and somehow the work did not seem half so tough.
It did not hurt that Evelyn began to caress her thighs. Apparently the vent made her cold, but she made no effort to move. She simply sat there, here nipples poking through her thin white shirt and her soft palms rubbing on her smooth, dark legs.
There came a point where I began to feel that Evelyn was getting hot watching us work. We would lower a couch to the floor, and I would look at her to see if she approved of its new location. She would be looking at us, her finger lightly caressing her bottom lip, and her tongue was rubbing the top lip.
Frank, for his part, seemed either not to notice or not to mind. I, on the other hand, began to feel my cock stirring in my pants. I regretted the fact that I had worn athletic shorts, which would do nothing to hide my bulging member.
Finally, we got the furniture the way Evelyn wanted it. I thought that we might be done, but Evelyn also wanted a wall in their den painted. She had already taped it off and laid down the tarp to protect the carpet, so we got to working immediately.
At around ten-thirty, we finally finished. My back was having spasms. My face, chest, and back were drenched in sweat. My shirt was covered in splotches of spilled paint. My shoulders were aching desperately.
Evelyn came into the well-lit den with a tray on which she had set two frosty beers. Her nipples were still poking against her shirt, but the allure of a cold beer was more appealing at that moment.
"Since you boys did such a good job," she said cheerfully, handing Frank a beer with a smile. "Here is your reward."
Evelyn walked to me and handed me a beer. As I took it, her hand grazed mine, and she looked at me with an inviting expression that I had never seen before and set me back a bit.
She turned on a dime and walked over to Frank, who had already put quite a dent in his beer.
As I followed suit, I saw her kiss him passionately on the lips, and then get on her tip toes to whisper into her husband's ear. Frank's mouth grew into a grin and he nodded.
"Aaron, there is one more job we need you to help us out with," Frank said, taking another huge swig from his beer.
I tried not to let my exasperation show. I had been slaving away for these two for over four hours! How much more did Evelyn expect me to do just for fifteen minutes worth of access into the company's activity logs?
Alas, I remembered Desiree's smirk as she would tease my throbbing cock with licks and strokes that I knew would ultimately lead nowhere. One more chore did not seem like too much.
"Sure," I said, and tilted my head back to take another drink. "What we got?"
