Say yes.

Associate Director of IT Security

“Quit looking at me like I’m some kind of a sellout,” you grump at Mo’s backside. You can’t see his look, but you’re sure he’s giving it. “This is going to be good for me. For us. If you were a normal dog I’d start buying you that gourmet wet food. From now on, buddy, the sky’s the limit. Morning and night. So if you’re gonna give me that look, look in the mirror.”

Mo sniffs at a mailbox post as if to remind you he’s never so much as glanced at a mirror. “Fine. Be that way. Still, it’s gonna be great. Did I mention they’re going to paint and redecorate my office this weekend to make it ready for me? Spent the whole afternoon looking at paint colors and carpet swatches. I’d forgotten what a swatch even was.”

Mo gets the scent of something, probably another squirrel, and begins a mad zigzag of pursuit across a nearby lawn, looking plaintively at you when he reaches the end of his leash. His programming couldn’t be more lifelike. “I’m telling you, buddy, the perks? Off the charts. Even salary aside, there’s supervisory oversight, budgetary discretion, even my own corner office. Hopefully this time without any hidden cameras in it. Damn, I still have to figure out what I’m gonna say to Amy about that. If anything. She’s so… nice, though. But still, she was watching it, and going to town on herself while she did. Which is so fucked up, right? But still kinda hot. Or do I just think it’s hot because she’s hot and she was–”

A neighbor woman you don’t recognize rounds the corner at a jog. You pause your dog therapy session and smile. Worse still, she pauses. “Oh my gosh, who’s this guy?” she asks, coming to a pause beside the two of you.

“This is Mo.”

“Oh, well isn’t he the cutest? Can I…?”

You nod, and she bends down to extend her hand for sniffing. Mo ignores it, straining as usual at his leash to continue the walk. Seeing he isn’t going to move until this incident passes, he endures a few gentle scratches between the ears.

“He’s adorable! What breed is he?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.” He slumps into the grass, bored of the exchange already.

Your stock answer still nets a chuckle. “He sure is. Say, do you live around here? I don’t think I’ve seen you around.”

“Sure do. Few blocks over yonder.” You nod your head.

“Yeah? I’m…” She jerks her head in another direction.

This woman is friendly. She’s fit. She’s pretty. For once in his life, Mo is doing his job and finding you a girl. (One of his jobs, at least.) Any other time in your life, you’d be chatting this woman up, getting her number, and making things happen.

But you’re at Monarch now. The bar has been raised.

“Welcome to the neighborhood.” You give her a smile, then grant Mo his wish and walk away. The disappointment on the woman’s face is obvious, but you’re numb to it.

After all… there’s that other perk.

Monday morning, you stride into Monarch Innovations with a little extra spring in your step. Still, you can’t help but feel a little out of place. As the new Associate Director of IT Security, it feels like you ought to be wearing a suit. Or at least some kind of nerdy trope like a pocket protector since you have “IT” in your title. Instead, per the guidance you received from the employee handbook you studied over the weekend, you’re in your usual khakis, upgraded only to a button-up shirt from the usual polo. According to the handbook, you’re welcome to wear jeans and a t-shirt if you like, but after your brief reacquaintance with Jenna after signing the contract last week, you can’t bring yourself to slum it, no matter the difference in comfort.

It was like meeting her for the first time all over again. She was in and out, only there long enough to deliver you and Aubrey the swatches and be promptly dismissed, but even that brief meeting was memorable. In an office building brimming with beautiful women, she still stands out. Enough time had passed since your initial meeting, that wild incident on the elevator, that she’d made a few alterations. Subtle, mostly, but you’re all but certain she’s done something different with her hair. Grown it out, maybe. Hit the tanning salon? That could be it. You can’t quite put your finger on the overall shift, but there’s… something.

You emerge from the elevator and make your way down to your new office, set into a little nook off the main IT department corridor. Your name is already on the door, Will Saxon, Associate Director of IT Security. You don’t have a key or anything, you realize belatedly, but trying the handle, you find you don’t need one. It swings open, and there it is.

And there she is.

Oh yeah – Jenna’s not wearing her glasses. That’s what’s different. (The hair for sure, too, though. Entranced by her tits as you were at the time, you still have a vague recollection of it being way shorter on one side, or something like that.)

The woman is sitting on the side of your desk, facing the door with a cup of coffee clasped in two hands. Not hers, though. It’s clearly an offering to you. “Good morning, Mr. Saxon,” she purrs, her voice a dusky velvet near-whisper, oozing more deference than you would expect from Mo if you were dangling a milkbone over his head. “I got your coffee for you. I wasn’t sure how you liked it so I went two creams two sugars. So you’d have something a little sweet to start you off in your new position.”

“Jenna, good morning! And thanks, that’s so nice of you.” You accept her offering a bit awkwardly, taking a quick sip to demonstrate your appreciation. “Mm, that’s great.”

You walk past her, inspecting your office with your back to your assistant. In no small part it’s to keep yourself from ogling. That skirt. That neckline! Surely no company is so lax as to tolerate that at the office. Still, it’s going to be your ass on the line if you stare too hard, not hers. So instead, rather than invite the world’s fastest termination for sexual harassment, you admire your new surroundings.

Much as you’d expected Aubrey to shirkwhere she could get away with it, this is actually pretty swanky. Oak desk, leather chair so new it’s gleaming in the sunlight. The paintings you picked out from the book Aubrey showed you are hanging on the walls, and the paint is a perfect match too. Everything’s so new you can smell it – except the fumes, which they managed to somehow vent out of here since painting it. There’s a small meeting table with a couple chairs at one side, and–

“What’s, um… what’s…”

You answer your own question in the midst of asking it, but Jenna replies anyway. “That’s my desk, Mr. Saxon. Ms. Merriman said there wasn’t space for me outside, so since your office is so big, I went ahead and asked if I could put it inside.”

“Oh. I… Hmm.”

She scurries around into your field of vision, eyes still cast demurely at your feet. “I hope I didn’t misjudge. I was only thinking that if I couldn’t be in here with you, they’d have to move me all the way down to the third floor and I wouldn’t be on hand if you needed anything. I didn’t want you to have to wait on me is all.” Her voice is honey butter. “I’m sorry if I overstepped, sir.”

“No, no, it’s fine. I was only thinking, you know, if I have a…” The word escapes you. She’s still looking down, and you take a moment to search for it down that plunging neckline. No sign of it. Only pounds and pounds of titty.

“Meeting, sir?” she suggests.

“Right! Yes, a meeting.”

“I’ve been assigned a confidentiality clause. Anything you say or do around me is strictly between the two of us.” Her eyes dart up to yours and suck you in. You somehow hear an echo: Anything. You’re pretty sure it didn’t come from her lips, but you can’t see them from all the way in here.

“Oh. All right. I guess we’ll just… see how it goes.”

“I’ll leave any time you’d like to be alone. And I’ll come back when you say come.” Nothing in her expression says she’s being facetious, nor suggestive, nor insincere. Whatever she’s saying, she means it.

Jesus.

You close the door behind you and settle down on the edge of your desk, where she’d been sitting a moment ago. “Look, Jenna. I was thinking, given the circumstances of our first meeting, maybe we should clear the air between us. You know?”

She nods, then turns to the door and slowly pushes it closed. You’d been so taken in by the sight of her, you’d been ready to talk about how she flashed you on an elevator with the door wide open. You’re not even sure who else is in hearing range, but still.

“Of course, Mr. Saxon. I know exactly what you mean.”

“Right. Look, I’m not sure what happened that day, really. Not that it wasn’t – that you weren’t – amazing. I never dreamed we’d be working together someday, though, like this, in this proximity, and I know you didn’t either, or else you never would have… you know. And I never would have encouraged it.”

“You mean how I showed you my tits? Sir?” She glances down, as if to remind you with the angle of her gaze where they are. As if anyone could forget.

“Right. That. And don’t get me wrong, they’re… I mean, you’re beautiful. If I can say that as a boss?”

“Of course you can.”

You’d meant it rhetorically, but on you go. “I didn’t want you to think I’ll let it affect our situation here. Honestly, I almost regret taking you on.When Aubrey told me you were available, I said yes so fast that I forgot that if we’re working together, then it would be inappropriate for us to… you know. Do… anything. Like that.”

“You regret taking me on?” Her eyes widen, chin quivers.

“What? No! I mean, not like that! Oh god, Jenna, no, not like that. I only meant because in the elevator that day, we seemed to click so well, but if you’re my assistant, then I can’t hit on you like I wanted to then. That’s all I’m saying. Don’t worry.”

She seems mollified, tears forestalled. Still, there’s a pouty look to her as her head twists to the side. “Why can’t you hit on me, exactly?”

“Jenna, you’re my assistant. It wouldn’t be proper.”

“Proper, Mr. Saxon?” As if she’d never heard the word before.

“Please call me Will,” you ask belatedly. “But yeah, proper. Can’t have the bosses forcing themselves on their secretaries.”

“Oh.” Her monosyllable manages to sound disappointed. Except with herself, somehow, or maybe the situation. Perhaps she shares your frustration.

“Anyway, I wanted to promise you that we’ll keep things strictly professional from here on out.”

“I see. Then, is it all right that I’m dressed this way, sir? I can go change, if you’d rather I wear something else.”

“You look great. Dress however you want to. You obviously know what you’re doing.”

She smiles at your compliment. “Thank you, sir.”

Work commences. The morning is spent down in HR, filling out forms and receiving explanations of benefits. After lunch there’s a meeting with Phil, your number two in your department. This one you take in your office, and you have to commend him for his capacity to ignore the buxom blonde secretary and her work quietly getting your files in order. Short as her skirt is, you miss half of what he’s saying as you memorize every scale in that sea-dragon tattoo on her right thigh.

“So, forgive me for asking, but… have you been down to 7?” Phil asks casually, and suddenly you’re all ears.

“No. I mean, not really. Why, am I supposed to go to 7?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t know. I figured with you having the d-word in your title and all, they’d want you down there at some point. Especially in IT security. Problem with working with a company that does all this automation software, the morons…” He grimaces, and corrects course. “The people at the top think automation can handle all of their security needs, so they leave us out of the loop on all kinds of stuff. Feels like we spend half our hours helping King bury stuff that he never should have hidden from us in the first place.”

“Oh?” You don’t need to ask, really, but maybe he’ll give you something you don’t know.

“Oh,” Phil concurs. “It’s a maze, between the SRT servers, offline databases, parsing lines of code that are so backwards and bland that they have to be farming it out of the third world. Or hell, maybe another one of their automation projects just to see if their bots can replace their people. Still, at least we have plausible deniability when he pulls the roof down on our heads.”

“What’s all that have to do with 7?”

“Man, you really are new. 7 is… well, 7. It’s where all the nitty gritty R&D happens. Elsewhere they’re making toasters with heat resistant internal cameras, apps that can scan your reflection in the bathroom mirror to remind you it’s time for a haircut, dust monitors for if it gets too dusty in the family room. Susie Homemaker crap for the 21st century. Only it’s not hard to hear where all that comes from, who worked on it. On 7, though… who the hell knows.”

“Somebody has to know. People have to work there, custodial has to sweep the floors, security has to secure it. Right? Are you telling me nobody knows?”

“I have suspicions. Shit, everyone has suspicions. But I figure as long as the checks keep coming in, be as suspicious as you like, King. Right?” Phil grins across the table.

The rest of the afternoon is unscheduled (for which Jenna apologizes and invites you to better acquaint her with your preferences and priorities). There’s a lot you could be doing, a lot you really ought to be doing, but more than that, a lot you _want _to be doing.

It’s a whole new day.

Decision time! Voting takes place for any and all patrons ($1+) at https://www.patreon.com/icebear. Results will continue to be posted here for free, though, so no pressure.
"Jenna" modeled by Natasha Lee.

Your choices:

• Reach out to your new supervisees, get to know your staff.
• Stay in the office, get to know Jenna. Establish rapport.
• Dismiss Jenna and inspect your new office for any further hidden surprises.
• Touch base with Nolan and Aubrey about their priorities, and maybe see what they’ll tell you about 7 in your new capacity.
• Reach out to Amy and see if you can clear the air with her about your discovery.
• Do your actual job and get to know Monarch better from the digital side.
• Abandon all sense of professionalism and see what you can get away with regarding your assistant.