Out of Office Romance

Aphrodite, you put one of the most famous women in the country on my Love List.

And also one of the most beautiful, right? That's a pretty impressive coup for you. Congratulations!

But how is this even going to work with a celebrity?

The same way it works with anyone else. Celebrities are just regular human beings when all is said and done.

So if I keep filling Sasha Stone's hearts, I can get her to say anything I want while touching herself, or make her come to my flat and do a naked bunny twerk for me?

Yes, that and many more exciting things.

But won't people find it weird if I start dating her? Usually when she is seeing someone it's all over the tabloids.

Like I keep telling you, you don't ever need to worry about anyone thinking anything is amiss regarding who you are dating or what you get up to with them. The Romance Mechanic has you covered.

Thanks Aphrodite. Great job as always!

Okay, so now Luke was making a deliberate effort to raise the probable bot's affection level, as long as he could do it without feeding her tokens. She was on more than half a heart now, and he was really intrigued to see what might happen when she reached a whole one and he invited her on a date.

The Sasha Stone development almost felt even more surreal. She now existed on his Love List, just like all the other women he had collected there. She had a gallery, currently featuring photos of her at the show last night. Luke had noticed that all of the shots in each gallery were taken from his POV, like his eyes had functioned as a camera when they had been snapped. How did that work exactly? The app had captured Sasha winking at him, which was almost wank worthy even without being remotely NSFW.

The comedy star also had her own Fact File for Luke to explore. In fact, if he was willing to pay for it, he could gain full access to all of her hidden kinks, fetishes and other sex secrets too. That was a totally wild thought. He could also now see where she was at any time via the map, and even watch live footage of her, for a small fee.

For now, he would focus his attention on her Fact File. If Luke was going to make any serious attempt at romancing the sexy superstar, it would be that, and the regular mapping system, which would give him the best chance of succeeding. He had ten free love tokens stored up from two days of logging onto the app, so used them to uncover one of her loved gifts. The revealed answer seemed to fit with her profession - 'hideously tacky charity shop finds'

Okay, that ought to be manageable. It might take a little more effort than the cat socks for Jools had, but there were a few charity places near Luke with some dreadful looking donated items in the window. They certainly wouldn't cost him much. If he could scoop up a few of the worst examples up, track down Sasha using the map, and find a way to give them to her without looking like a total weirdo, he might just be able to push her up to that all important first heart, which would then allow him to call her up for a date any time he felt like it.

Today, however, his focus would be on Rachel.

Sometimes, it was genuinely difficult for Luke to tell if he was a little bit in love with his co-worker or not. He found Rachel extremely attractive and was also very fond of her as a person. Did those two things together amount to something resembling actual love, or just the illusion of it?

Until now he had always treated that question as purely theoretical, since Rachel had been a no go from the start. When she had first joined the company he worked for, she had a long term, live-in boyfriend. Then Gina had showed up in the same office, and she and Luke had got together. Maybe a year later, Rachel and her boyfriend had split up. Had he still been single, Luke would almost certainly have tried to make something happen with her then. However, he couldn't have done that to Gina.

That was perhaps what upset Luke about the Phil situation the most. He had passed up the opportunity for a shot at genuine happiness with someone truly special to him, somebody who he'd always enjoyed a greater natural chemistry with than he had with Gina, out of pure, blind loyalty to his partner. She had then ditched him for Mr Potato Head, the moment that nobody had come sniffing opportunistically around her. Of course, by that point Luke felt he had sailed way too far into the friend zone with Rachel to ever come back from it.

But that was then. This was now. The dating game had been completely redefined for Luke.

---

Despite how close they were in the workplace, Luke and Rachel had barely spent any time together outside of it. He was therefore used to seeing her dressed in sensible and understated office wear, and had rarely witnessed his friend in more casual clothing, let alone glammed up for a date, as she was now. It was fair to say she scrubbed up very nicely.

Luke began their date by giving Rachel a Kit Kat, which had unlocked as a 'loved' gift in her Fact File, quite inadvertently, after he had bought her one the previous day. He had another with him for the end of their excursion, along with a couple of other little things he knew she liked to treat her with during their scheduled afternoon and early evening together. He would also be buying his date a coffee, and would probably pick her up a biscuit or slice of cake to go with it. He would be treating her to dinner later on. This was going to be an all out **** to get Rachel up to three hearts before the day ended.

Of course, any date with someone as lovely as Rachel was going to be a pleasurable experience, but Luke couldn't help but be a little too distracted by his phone to fully appreciate it. He kept checking that third heart of hers, trying to figure out whether there was any more red in it than there had been when he looked five minutes ago and, if so, how much?

"What's up? I've never seen you look at your phone as often as you've been doing lately. Is everything okay?"

Rachel had made the comment out of concern, not annoyance, but it caused Luke to put his mobile away immediately and resolve to be more present on his date. A watched kettle never boiled, after all.

"Sorry, just one of those family group chats that won't stop buzzing at me. You sort of feel you need to keep checking in case it's something important, but it never is"

"Yeah, I get that too" Rachel smiled as she sipped her cafe latte.

"So were you surprised when I asked you out?" Luke decided to ask, quite bluntly.

"A little" Rachel admitted "I mean, we've known each other for so long. I sort of figured the timing was just never going to be right, and we were past the point where you and me dating might have been a thing"

"So what made you accept so quickly?"

God, even when he tried his hardest not to, Luke couldn't stop himself from repeatedly coming back to the fucking Romance Mechanic. His question wasn't an attempt to fish for a compliment, he wanted to try and get a better idea of just how the app was interacting with his connections. How could it be so certain they would accept his offer of a date once a heart had been filled?

"I don't know, really. It's hard to put into words. Intuition, maybe?" the brunette looked thoughtful as she pondered the question "My gut told me this might not be the best idea. We've worked so well as just friends for so long, after all. But it was almost like there was a voice in my head saying "You need to do this, Rachel", so I listened to it"

"And you don't mind me dating other women?"

"It kind of sucks if you choose to spend time with them over me, but on principle I have no issue with it at all" she shrugged "You can date as many people as you want. That's certainly none of my business, and I don't see why it should affect our time together. I'm really happy being here with you now, so let's just enjoy that"

Okay, so what Luke had extrapolated from that conversation was that Rachel was happy. This was all fine.

He managed to sneak another look at his progress in levelling his hot colleague up as she excused her self to the bathroom after finishing her drink. It didn't look like there was as much red in her third heart as he needed there to be by this point. Luke felt he couldn't do much more than he already was, but it increasingly seemed like it wasn't quite going to happen for him that day. It would likely be a close run thing, but those fucking hearts got significantly harder to fill the further up in levels a connection got.

Towards the end of the date, Luke had accepted defeat and stopped consulting his phone entirely. He had also given up trying to think of quick methods to boost his date's affection level, so he could just relax and enjoy what was left of their time together. What did it matter if he had to wait another few days to get Rachel naked, after he had spent the best part of five years lusting hopelessly after her?

The pair kissed passionately as Rachel's Uber pulled up towards them after their meal, Luke enjoying a playful squeeze of her arse, which seemed to be very much permitted on two hearts.

Just before she went, Luke reached into his bag, pulled out the end of date Kit Kat and handed it to Rachel as a goodbye gift.

"Something for the road"

"Aww, that's sweet!"

She opened the wrapper, broke off a bar of chocolate and handed it to Luke.

"I had a wonderful time. Let's do it again soon"

It was perhaps thirty seconds later that Luke's phone buzzed.

Congratulations, you have levelled Rachel up to three hearts! Keep up the great work!

He looked longingly at the shrinking sight of her taxi as it drove into the distance. For fuck's sake!

---

Luke arrived back at his flat and quickly logged onto the only app that seemed to matter to him these days.

He checked on the newly levelled up Rachel's Girl Gallery. There were no nudes to be unlocked just yet. He hadn't seen her naked, so that was probably to be expected.

He then navigated to the Advanced Mapping section and hit on the 'Most Recent Candid Footage' button. The message that popped up made Luke's heart race and his dick twitch.

Candid footage of Rachel was collected within the past hour. Would you like to unlock it for ten love tokens?

Luke had already spent the few tokens he had begun the day with finding out what gifts Sasha Stone loved. If he wanted to watch hot nude footage of his gorgeous office crush he had two choices - wait 48 hours or pay up.

He could feel his willpower ebbing away. There had been a link to an introductory offer for tokens flashing at him ever since the update, which he had ignored up until now. He pressed it out of curiosity.

50 tokens for ten pounds. That was actually an incredibly good deal. The nude footage of Rachel would cost him about what he would spend on a loaf of bread. He was under no illusions, the app would jack the price of tokens up as soon as he had got a taste for them. But, if he just did it this once, and preserved his remaining purchased tokens wisely, then he could vow to himself only to use the five a day free ones from now on.

Luke typed his credit card details into the payment box, and was greeted with a triumphant jingling sound to indicate he now had a full fifty love tokens to play with.

He immediately hit on the button for the candid footage of Rachel again. This time there was no pop up message to frustrate him. Instead, a video of Rachel, fully clothed in what was presumably her own bedroom, began to play. She was beaming from ear to ear with delight following her day with Luke. Once again, it seemed clear to him that everyone on his list was enjoying the experience too.

Rachel began undressing while humming a happy sounding tune of indeterminate origin to herself. This wasn't like a sexy strip tease, it was just someone removing their clothes at the end of a day out. Methodical. Efficient. Each item of clothing was either neatly folded and stored away, or tossed onto a pile of laundry once it had been taken off. Somehow the mundane realism of it all made the footage even hotter.

The last items of clothing Rachel removed were her earrings.

There she was. Luke's beautiful friend who he had fantasised about for years, in her full naked glory. The video wasn't quite done yet.

Rachel turned to walk towards the bed, giving Luke a perfect view of her peachy little arse, before sitting on it, raising a leg and moving her hand towards her pussy.

It was then the video pixelised, and Luke was greeted with an infuriating popup.

Advance Rachel to four hearts to unlock Sexual Videos.

At least it was heartening to know she would be ending their day together by masturbating. So too would he.

Luke grabbed a handful of tissues, unzipped his flies, and hit the play button again. There was an option to loop the video, which he took advantage of, as he stroked his highly excited member until it released its load.

It was only once Luke had cleaned up, taken a shower, and returned to the app that he noticed something he had missed before in all the excitement of the nude Rachel footage.

His fifty token splurge had bought him something else he hadn't anticipated.

Aphrodite was now on a full heart.

She was dateable.