Well, but lunch is better

You walk into work a couple minutes before 8:00 a.m., and sit down to get to work. One of the keys for today is to lull Ted into a false sense of security, which meant working yourself to the bone at the cost of your sanity.

So you spend your morning looking over a comparative analysis between a product your company produces with a competitors. In fact, it's Cooper-Cardinal, the company that Rebecca, your best friend Allen's wife and a former crush of yours, works at. You realize that the four of you still haven't gotten a meal together, and you resolve to finally do that next week, when you have some free time.

About an hour into work you realize that once again, Mary isn't coming into working today. So, while Ted is distracted bragging about his accomplishments to other members of upper management, you compose a long text to Mary, focused on correct spelling and being grammatically correct.

J: Mary. I know that you've been skipping work for the last two days, and I'm deeply sorry if my reaction to your suggestion of swinging caused that. I just want you know, it has nothing to do with your level of attractiveness or my feelings for you. I've always mentally put you in a mental box along with my mother and sister, aka, wonderful women who are certainly attractive that I can't see in a sexual manner. And again, I'm sorry for putting you in that box.

J: Because you are a beautiful woman who deserves every good thing that she gets. And if you and your husband want to swing with Carrie and me, then I'd be honored to participate.

J: However, Carrie and I want to try something a little different. She'll go to your house to meet up with James, while you'll come over to my apartment for some fun of our own.

J: The best time for us will be tomorrow night, at 7. I sincerely hope to see you soon.

You get back to work, though a couple minutes later your phone buzzes and eagerly, you check it to see if Mary has responded to you.

M: Thanks John, that means a lot. I'll talk it over with James, but I think you and I will be meeting up tomorrow after work ;)

You lean back and fist pump, ecstatic at the possibility of sex with your gorgeous brunette coworker. While a part of you remained worried that James would not take Carrie's refusal to sleep with him poorly, you trusted Carrie's guile more. Especially if your plan with Mary's simcard worked out.

You work the rest of the morning, with Ted avoiding talking. He does walk past to make sure that you're working, but he doesn't talk to you. The rest of the time, he just sits in his corner office, emailing his instructions. You avoid seeking him out to talk to him; you aren't sure that you can resist taunting that you fucked his wife and made her your slut.

Eventually, noon rolls around and you get up to leave for lunch. While it might make more sense for Helen to meet with Ted at lunchtime so that you could have unfettered access to Marissa, you have an preexisting appointment in place, one that even Carrie doesn't know about. Well, to call it an appointment would be a misnomer, an ambush would be more appropriate.

You get into your car and drive to your destination, using the address that a little social media stalking uncovered for you. Eventually you pull in at your destination, Helpvio, the charity that Natalie, your first conquest, works at. Luckily, you time your arrival so that she's currently walking to her car. You slow down and roll down your window, calling out, "Hey Natalie. Hop on in." Natalie whirls around, and recognizing you, the man who fucked her just this past weekend, she blushes heavily and looks for an escape. "Come on," you continue. "It's important. Get in her before someone sees you enter an unfamiliar car."

That touches a nerve, and she quickly enters your car, slamming the door shut in a bit of frustration. Not wanting people to be able to see her so easily in your car, you roll the window back up to preserve as much anonymity as you can. The two of you drive in a silence for a couple minutes, before Natalie speaks up, "So. What was so important that you had to come to my job and risk embarrassing me in front of all of my coworkers?"

"Relax," you say, trying to calm Natalie down. "Is that any way to talk to the man who fucked you most recently." She sniffs, and you realize that she must have had sex with Chet since then. "Oh, you fucked Chet. You shouldn't have done that." You realize that the way you said that sounded threatening, so you wave it off. "Sorry, I didn't mean for that to come off that way. I just meant that if you fucked him that soon after your sex with me, his shortcomings would be even more obvious. Am I right?" Natalie's silence tells you all you need to know; her sex with Chet paled in comparison to your coupling.

"Anyway, that's not why I wanted to meet with you. You need to stop avoiding Carrie. She misses you."

"So she sent you here to clean up after her mistakes. Typical," Natalie scoffs.

"She has no idea I'm here, Natalie. I just know how much your friendship means to her, and she's not the same without you." Natalie doesn't speak for a moment, and you since you're stopped at a stoplight, you lay your hand gently on her knee and try to meet her eyes. "She isn't. Even if she hasn't said anything, she needs you in her life."

"It's just... do you know how humiliating it is for your friend to be telling something for ages, and you vehemently disagreeing with them, only for it to turn out your friend was right?" You shake your head, and Natalie continues, "Carrie has hinted for years that Chet wasn't good enough for me, that I was a slut who needed a real man, and other stuff like that. And I always insisted that I wasn't like her, that I knew how to control myself. But after a couple of glasses of wine and a night out at a club with you two, I spread my legs like that," she says, snapping her fingers to punctuate her point. "And when I went to get **** on her by seducing, you turned the tables on me in no time at all, fucking me and giving me the best sex of my life. What are you doing?" she asked.

During her speech you had pulled into an empty parking lot and parked, unzipping your cock in the process. "Oh," you reply. "Whenever Carrie gets stressed, I just whip my cock out and she calms down, usually by blowing me or stroking me."

"I don't think sucking your dick exactly helps me out right now," Natalie says snidely.

"Precisely. Which proves that you aren't 100% alike to Carrie. You're different." Natalie slowly nods, skeptical of your reasoning, so you keep going. "I'm saying that you're not as slutty as Carrie." Natalie rolls her eyes, apparently that isn't a high bar to clear. "I'm serious. Over the past week you've discovered some new information about yourself, primarily that you're not as monogamous as you hoped you were. And that's okay. But you're also not a girl who blows a recent hookup in the car to feel better about yourself, like Carrie wants you to be. You're somewhere in the middle, and that's okay."

"Thank you, John." Natalie grabs your collar and pulls you in for a kiss. You're a little shocked at her aggressiveness, but you quickly get into it, kissing her back. This kiss is a lot different from your previous kisses: much less lustful, and a lot more loving. "I think I needed to hear that."

"No problem," you reply, filling the silence. "You sure you don't want to suck my dick?" Natalie rolls her eyes, and you zip yourself back up, covering your privates. "Where do you want to go for lunch? I'm famished."