Do your homework

"None worth asking right now," you respond.

Kate smirks, then walks over to the door and quietly unlocks it. She glances around the office to make sure nothing is visibly amiss, then opens the door and the blinds on the window next to it. She nods to you, smiling, then walks over to her computer and starts working.

You leave Kate's office and walk to your cubicle. You feel very conspicuous, and are observant of the few people already in this morning, to see if anybody's staring at you or even just stealing glances. Nobody seems to be doing anything other than plugging away, however. Your encounter with Kate must have been brief enough and quiet enough to not have drawn any attention whatsoever, which is probably for the best. Arriving at your cubicle, you sit down and log on to your computer.

In a private browsing window, you check the address that Kate gave you for the chat room, and are presented with an error page. She must not have made it yet. Shrugging, you open another tab and search for clinics near you that don't require you to use insurance. There is nothing terribly close by, but there is one on the way to the airport that offers out-of-pocket testing and has reasonably short wait times listed. Usually for this trip schedule you work a half day before going to the airport to catch your flight, so you have plenty of time to stop in and get tested if you leave now, or any time soon. Excellent.

You reply to a few emails and forward a few more, then are ready to close down the computer. You need to get product out of the warehouse area, so you wander over. Comprising fully half of the office building, it is one large room with bare concrete floors lit by banks of fluorescent lights, and row after row of metal shelves that go all the way up to the twelve foot ceiling. There is a constant loud hum from the ventilation system, which means that even if anybody else was in the room, you wouldn't hear them walking around the corner until you ran directly into them. As a result, you always take corners slowly in the warehouse. You check out the demo products that you need for this week's trip, and load up a couple of tote bags with goodies to give away. You throw it all into a plastic crate, and lug it out to your car to transfer to the luggage that you transport it in, and double check as always that you have the right paperwork for airport security so that they don't hassle you about the luggage contents.

You hop in the car and drive to the clinic. You catch yourself singing along to the song on the radio, which is not something you normally do, but it just feels right, today. Other than that the drive is uneventful, and you arrive at the clinic. You sign in, indicating you are here for an STI panel, take a number and a clipboard holding a few sheets to fill out, and sit down in the waiting room which has about a half dozen other people in it, mostly looking at their phones. A little clock with red digits indicates that current wait time is approximately thirty minutes.

You pull out your phone, open a private browsing window, and again check the address that Kate gave you. This time, instead of an error, you are presented with a login screen. You log on with the credentials Kate specified, and find a single room with a single message in it.

k: homework?

A timestamp off to the right of the message indicates that it was posted about ten minutes ago. You look around the waiting room, then reply:

s: sitting in the waiting room

You fill out the forms, pausing at the question that asks how long since you engaged in sexual activity. You mark the checkbox for "within the last 24 hours," but are scratching your head to trying and remember what you would have put were it not for this morning. "Within the last 7 days"? No, definitely not. "Within the last 30 days?" No ... not that either. "Within the last 365 days"? That, yes, finally. It had been too long. For contact information, you create and enter in a fresh email address, and resolve not to use it for anything else.

You waste away the rest of the wait time on your phone, and finally hear your number called by a male nurse. You head into an exam room with him and hand him the clipboard. He shuts the door, introduces himself, and scans through the forms quickly. He then proceeds to explain the procedure: a visual inspection, some swabs and a blood draw, then some results in available 3 days and the rest in 7. You nod - all this information was on the forms, and even the website, for that matter. He conducts the exam and sends you on your way.

Back in the car, you pull out your phone to check the chat room before getting back on the road.

k: let me know

You type in the email address and password you just created, then add full results in 7 days. As you send the message, you see an indicator that k is typing.

k: excellent. watch this space

You wait for a few minutes, but the indicator does not return.

You have 3 XP, -1 Hard, +3 Hot, +1 Cool, -1 Control, Cunnilingus and Old Habits Die Hard (2). Desire levels: Kate +0, Rachel -1.