At least you got the number of the hottie with the neck tattoo.

Taking a Bite

“Hey, it’s Will.”

“Will? I don’t know any Will. Fuck off.”

“No no don’t hang up Mia!” you hurry. “From the elevator yesterday, remember?”

There’s a pause as she returns the phone to her mouth. “Oh, Mr. King’s friend?”

You’re clever enough not to contradict her, at least. “Um, right. Mr. King’s friend.”

“All right. So hey, Will.” Like that, Mia’s voice shifts from someone who had been hesitant to even answer the phone in the first place to someone who’s talking to a close friend. Or something better.

“Hey yourself. This isn’t a bad time, is it?”

“No, no prob. I was just about to hop in the shower.”

Your eyes close in spite of yourself, picturing a sheen of water glowing over the top of that neck tattoo. “Cool, yeah. I usually shower in the morning, myself. Ease into the day and all, you know?”

“What if you get dirty at night?” Mia asked.

Damn. Her tone wasn’t quite that of a phone sex operator – or how you’d imagine one – but it was definitely suggestive. “I don’t mind being a little dirty.”

She laughs, sounding glad you played along. “I’ll bet you don’t. If half of what I hear about Mr. King is true, you boys must need to walk through the car wash at the end of the night.”

Not a surprising reputation from the guy who was getting his dick sucked by Jenna during what should have been your first meeting. Still, maybe not the best idea to keep riding on his coattails. You chuckle, then shift to the real purpose of your call. “Say, speaking of walking around – how’s that for a transition, eh?”

“Not bad, Will, not bad.”

“How about you let me take you out sometime? I was thinking they have that food festival thing going on downtown, so maybe…”

There’s not time to remember that you’re asking out a veritable stranger, a crazy hot one, and over the phone no less. None. “Sounds fun! When were you thinking? I have dates lined up Friday and Saturday, but… I guess for a friend of Mr. King…”

Huh. Apparently your idea of asking this little biscuit out wasn’t especially original. “No, no need. How about tomorrow night? Promise I’ll have you home in time for a good night’s sleep.”

“Don’t make promises I might not let you keep,” she replies with a lilt in her voice. “Sounds good. Text me your address and I’ll pick you up, kay?”

---

You expect the next day to pass in a blur, yet another fog of anticipation of a date with one of the sexy, and frankly, easy ladies of Monarch. Something in the water, no doubt, of which you can only hope they’re all keeping well-hydrated. However, a chance encounter after a meeting leaves you having lunch in the office of Amy Marchiano, junior VP of marketing.

“You really don’t have to buy me lunch,” you insist, again.

“Will, please.” She flicks her fingers at you dismissively. “So, long time no see. How’s it been going? Close to winding down your audit yet?”

“Getting there,” you reply, omitting unfortunately. “Still waiting on a few more interviews, some follow-up with a couple smaller departments, and some boring IT blahdy blah. But soon.”

“Aw, that’s too bad. Or, well, maybe not for you. Too bad for, you know, Monarch. That’s all. Just started to feel like you were fitting in.”

Her chair maneuvers around her desk to your side, and once she’s in front of you, her legs cross fetchingly. Once upon a time, seeing a woman this beautiful crossing those legs in that skirt… it would have been the highlight of your day. If things went well with Avery – or no, tonight was Mia – then you expected you’d forget this.

Then she uncrosses them, crosses the other way, and you catch a faint smile when your eyes flicker back up to hers, and you revise that expectation.

“It’s been great here for sure. It’s… well, it’s an interesting place to work, that’s for sure.”

“Yeah, and I hear you’re making lots of inroads.”

“Inroads?” What all has she heard?

“Oh, Aubrey’s quite pleased with you. Heck, she was practically pressuring me to try to rope you into the fold.”

“You? I mean, not that I don’t enjoy your company, Amy, but… why you? We’ve hardly worked together.”

“Pff. Networking isn’t just having connections within your circle, but expanding it. Look at yourself, after all. Last weekend, I hear you were lighting up the dance floor with Avery Parker and… oh, I forget her name, that pretty girl from custodial. Birgitte, or… crud, it’s something European-sounding I feel like, but–”

“Ingrid.”

“Right! Ingrid, I was so close.” She pauses to let you respond.

“Oh. Well, yeah. We went out to a club, had a few drinks, a few laughs. Nice girls.”

She nods. “I always liked Avery. Rough around the edges, maybe, but how else are you going to do any sanding?”

“Trying that turn of phrase out for your writing class, eh?”

Amy laughs. “Oh, right! Feels like it’s been ages. No, I already gave up the dream. Ran the numbers, realized that unless I basically tripled my words per week, I’d be finishing my first novel sometime in my early forties.” She shrugs. “So now, I’m doing a massage class.”

You adjust yourself in your seat, fold your hands in your lap. “Yeah? That sounds interesting.”

The VP rolls her eyes at herself. “I know, I know, pretty young Asian woman mastering the art of massage, I’m a walking cliché. But sometimes it’s good to live outside your comfort zone, so I figured what the hell.” Amy taps your knee playfully. “Play your cards right, mister, and maybe once I figure out how to not jab my fingernails into my patient’s shoulders, I’ll let you ask me for a turn.”

You agree by reflex. “That sounds–”

“That is, if Avery and Ingrid don’t mind. I don’t want to be that girl. Especially with the power imbalance, the last thing I want is to start something over a guy with a subordinate. Messy stuff.”

“Huh? No, no, that was just a fun night out. There’s nothing between us, like, relationship wise. I’m actually seeing someone else tonight. Told Avery about it this morning, and she was all supportive.”

“Oh yeah? I’ll keep that in mind. Who’s tonight’s lucky lady? Finally get ahold of that Jenna woman you were looking for?” She sits up excitedly.

If only. Even after Ingrid and Avery, you still haven’t forgotten those hauntingly perfect tits, flashed at you so casually. “No, her name is Mia. Dark hair, neck tat–” You stop yourself, seeing comprehension dawn on Amy’s face. And not in a flattering way. Her lips twist downwards; the glower is out of place on her usually sunny features.

“Mia. Really? Come on, Will. You’re not seriously after a girl like Mia, are you?”

“It’s only a date. We bumped into one another in the elevator, had a moment… Why? Is she part troglodyte or something?”

“You could say that.” Amy quickly rises, crossing the room to close the door. Damn, but her ass looks good in that skirt. You can make out the cleft between her buttocks. Your eyes are on hers when she returns to her chair, though.

“Look. I don’t like to speak ill of my coworkers, so I won’t go into detail. You’re a sweet guy, though, so I’d feel badly not saying something.”

“Sure. What’s her story?”

“Mia is… well…” She takes a moment, searching for the right words. “OK, let me back up. So Monarch, as you may have noticed, likes to get its hands on talent on the way up. We do a lot of hiring right out of college, and we’re used to a fair amount of turnover to get the latest crop. That’s how Mr. King and Ms. Merriman like it.”

“Sure, sure.”

“It keeps us young, relevant, mobile. Frankly it keeps labor down, which isn’t nothing. Still – and I say this owning that I’m a thirty-year-old VP – it means our leadership is less experienced in their fields, which means we take a lot of our direction from the top.”

“Yeah, I get that. Still, what’s that got to do with Mia?”

“Right, I’m coming to that. So… Shoot, how to put this without sounding mean.”

“Just say it, Amy.”

She sighs. “OK. Mia knows that, like I said, the route to promotion comes from the top. And… she is the sort of woman who uses her youth and, um, her…”

“Her looks?” you prompt.

“Right. Looks.” Amy looks relieved not to have to say something more coarse. “She uses those things to try to skip a few rungs on the ladder.”

Your head cocks to the side. “Is that all? I mean, surely it’s not unheard of to flirt a little to get ahead.” You’re playing naïve, a bit, but her response gives you what you were looking for.

“Mia… Look. You didn’t hear this from me, but six months on Mr. King’s birthday, she got caught trying to smuggle herself in a big box – wrapping paper and all – into his office. Naked.” Her lips twist judgmentally. “Not quite, actually. There was a bow around her neck, I heard.”

“Wow. You know, you could’ve led with that, Amy.”

“I don’t like to gossip! But I don’t want you to get tangled up with someone who might just be trying to use you to get ahead.”

“Who, me? I’m a consultant. How could I possibly–”

Her phone buzzes on her desktop. You can’t see the caller, but when she does, she holds up a finger and answers. It’s your nature to be nosy, and when you hear the monotonous tone of a robotic voice, you can’t help but be curious.

“Ms. Marchiano. This is a secure pre-recorded message from the office of Nolan King. Are you prepared to accept.”

Amy pushes her chair with her feet, rolling back to the far side of her desk as she replies. “Yes.”

It’s harder to make out the voice with her farther away, her monitor interposing, but it’s otherwise silent in the room, so you don’t have much choice but to keep eavesdropping. Or so you tell yourself.

“Receipt of message recorded. Message proceeds: Be advised that executive level access codes will be changed effective today at 9:00 PM.”

“Ugh, not again,” she mutters, cutting off some of the recording.

“... via secure company email at that time. Memorize your new access code upon receiving it. The email will be purged from our servers one hour after sending. It is a violation of company policy to write down your executive access code. If you forget your code, report for disciplinary action to the office of the–”

“Yeah, yeah.” Amy hangs up, shaking her head irritably. “Sorry, memo from the top.”

“No worries,” you say, still processing what you’ve heard. Executive access codes? You’ve been monitoring the IT security of Monarch for weeks now, and this is the first you’ve heard of such things. Or the second, if an executive access code is what’s needed to access 7.

Why would they hide this from you? Is this some kind of test of your skills? Or are they really conducting some business so secret that they can’t even let the guy they hired to help them keep their secrets know it exists?

Your lunch arrives then, hand delivered by Amy’s administrative assistant, a tight-lipped fellow whose eyes go back and forth between the two of you a bit less casually than you’d like. Like you were up to something.

“Anyway, sorry to have to get into gossip. The rumor mill around here can be brutal. I know way more about who’s doing what with whom than I ever wanted to, and I’m not even well-connected. You do what you want with her, but I wanted you to be forewarned. In case.”

“Thanks. I think.”

She takes a bite of her salad. “So, if you do go through with it – and by all means don’t let my nosy butt be the deciding factor – where are you guys going?”

“We’re thinking of trying out that food festival, the… I can never remember the name.”

“Oh! Bite on the Boardwalk!” She claps her hands together excitedly. “I so wanted to go to that.”

“It’s supposed to be pretty good. At least that’s what the talking heads said on the morning news.”

“Heck, maybe I’ll get lucky and meet a hunky stranger in the elevator and find somebody to take me.” She grins, but there’s no suggestion behind it, simply an innocent comment.

---

You crash into bed some almost twelve hours later, weary but fulfilled. You’re exhausted with good reason though, after…

---

Decision time! Voting takes place for patrons $10+ at https://www.patreon.com/icebear. Results will continue to be posted here for free, though, so no pressure. Mia image modeled by Bee Phillips. Amy Marchiano image illustrated by Karl “Souracid” Liversidge.

Your choices:

• … after seeing Mia’s response on your date when you invented a long-time friendship with Nolan King. Thanks for the tip, Amy.
• … after changing your plans, and instead playing the part of Hunky Stranger to the delightful Amy Marchiano.
• … after blowing off both ladies and working at Monarch into the evening to hack and intercept those executive security codes before the chance is lost, maybe forever.