Intermission 1: Hana Sato

Her hands were shaking slightly as they gripped the towel against her wet body. For a moment, Hana thought it was because Frank had been so openly ogling her, something she normally hated. But as soon as she started to process the feeling, her disquiet slipped away.

No, not because of Frank really, but just the worry about Jan finding them and having to explain… having to explain what the hell Frank was doing in the shower with her?

And what WAS Frank doing? Hana thinks again of him naked and wet. How it was embarrassing that they saw each like that but, not horribly so? After all, while it may seem sudden the simple truth is Frank is a dear friend and she feels so comfortable and relaxed around him. Sure, his, well, erection pointing at her was surprising. The shower had been a mostly non-sensual experience for Hana, but after the shock of seeing her good friend pointing at her with his bobbing penis she had to remember he IS a man after all. Those things just have a life of their own, he may not have even realized his body was reacting in such a way.

But, of course, the way he stared at her when he crawled into her shower stall put the lie to that explanation. His gaze had been so hungry, so desirous. Hana might have been threatened, even though Frank was such a good guy, except for the fact that she had felt a tiny flicker of something too. Maybe just being two normal adult humans, best buds or not, in such a situation made it inevitable?

Granted, Frank is not really her type. His body could charitably be described as “doughy” and while he has a perfectly average face and appearance he isn’t good looking enough to offset the fact he is twice her age. But still, Hana knows people are just hard wired to react to visual sexual stimuli, and his coc - his penis - was certainly nothing to scoff at. Hana felt a strange burst of pride at knowing that, even if he was a slightly out of shape middle aged guy, at least her friend had a bit of a wrench on him!

A voice calls out, “Hana? Hello?” With a start the young woman looks up and realizes she’s been lost in thought for a couple of long minutes, just standing there wrapped in a towel.

Stepping out of her shower stall, Jan is looking at her with curiosity mingled with concern. Hana shakes her head as if to clear her thoughts, then takes a breath to respond that nothing is wrong. As she does, she can’t help but see that Jan is casually holding her towel in front of her naked body with one hand but hasn’t wrapped it around, and the older woman’s very fit frame is made even more alluring by covering most of it up.

'Wow she is in such great shape and her legs are so damn long and toned - ugh stop it what is going on with me today?' Hana thinks to herself as Jan frowns and dries herself off. The women don’t parade around nude in the change room by any means, but since they are usually the only ones there they aren’t so shy as to change out of sight of each other either. Jan has stripped down near her locker a few times while Hana has changed and vice versa, and Hana has never thought anything of it before other than the casual noting of someone else’s wardrobe or appearance. 'Damn, seeing Frank all naked and horny must have affected me more than I realized!'

Now that she’s dried off partially, Jan wraps the towel around herself and then takes another from the shelf and starts to dry her red hair. Hana is used to seeing Jan in her stern management mode, but something in the way she pauses to look at Hana with a hint of worry telegraphs the fact that she wants to drop the “boss bitch” persona and talk about a more personal matter. Hana, with a sinking heart, can guess what it is.

“Actually Hana, I wanted to talk to you for a moment if you don’t mind,” the slender woman says and Hana has her suspicion confirmed. If it was work related Jan wouldn’t ask. This is going to be slightly personal, and there could only be one topic.

Actively drying herself off, Hana quickly pulls her panties on under her towel then, turning her back to Jan to take off the towel, puts her bra on. Turning back around, she smiles and nods, “Sure thing Jan. What’s up?”

“I wanted to talk to you about Frank, actually.”

With a short laugh, Hana replies, “I assumed. If this is about him getting the gym all messy, I meant what I said. I think it’s great he wants to get in better shape and I don’t mind helping him out. And don’t worry, we’ll make sure the place is clean, you know I’d never leave a mess and I’ll make sure Frank doesn’t either.”

“Oh no, not that!” Jan says quickly, “Actually after the fact I realized I was too harsh maybe. I hate it when other people leave the equipment all sweaty or don’t put things back properly but I shouldn’t have been so blunt about it. I meant, well, I see you two being friendly and I wanted to make sure you were OK. That things were good.”

Nodding, Hana feels her instinctive defensiveness about Frank receding. Jan certainly was not Frank’s biggest fan, but her concerns seemed to be of a less personal nature. “I know what you mean Jan, and I understand how it might look. But I’ve been sitting in that office with Frank for years now and I guess we finally just started talking. He’s a good guy, and a valuable employee, and once I started talking to him I could see that.” With a slight frown, Hana thought back to how she felt about Frank even a few days ago, before slowly continuing, “I guess maybe I felt guilty that I just ignored him for so long. He is obviously lonely and feels out of place here, and instead of simply being pleasant to him I pretended he wasn’t there.”

“Well, I guess that’s alright,” Jan says in a slightly stiff tone that indicates that, maybe, she doesn’t really think it’s alright, “but I wanted to make sure. As an older man, guys like Frank might have outdated concepts of workplace dynamics or gender. Now, no one has ever complained about Frank before - and if they did I’d have his crap in a cardboard box in an hour - but you are a young woman and he’s, well, a man. I want to make sure you’re not just hanging out with him because you feel like it’s the easy way out.”

In Hana, her desire to defend Frank from Jan’s ill opinion warred with her honest appreciation that Jan simply wanted to make sure things were, in fact, good. Pushing down her annoyance that Jan could be so dismissive of Frank’s valuable contributions to the company, Hana decides to focus on the positive.

Reaching out her hand, Hana places it on Jan’s bare arm. The slight stiffening of her boss at the contact makes Hana smile in spite of herself and she says, “I do get it, and thank you Jan. I truly appreciate it, and I know what you mean. I interned at another tech firm before graduating and one of the managers there assumed everyone loved his borderline-inappropriate jokes and sly comments, and no one said anything. He kept it up even though it bothered some of the women, doing that “oh I’m just joking relax” crap, and I saw how some of the interns laughed nervously at his dumb comments because it’s easier to go along with it and hope he leaves you alone. But this isn’t like that, I’m not being friendly with Frank just because I’m scared to make him angry at me if I’m not - he really is a nice guy and he’s been totally appropriate.”

A sudden mental image of Frank’s penis, the head almost purple with engorging blood, flashed into Hana’s mind and she paused. 'Wait Frank is a nice guy but he did stare at me in the shower just now like he wanted to push me against the stall and take me hard, just thrust into me until I screamed…' Even as she remembers it, her feelings about what happened seem to lose their sharpness. Sure, Frank got turned on by seeing her naked, but he was as surprised as she was. It will probably just be a funny in-joke between them, right? Nothing to get worked up by. Just like Hana’s own slight flush, a tiny tickle in her lower stomach at the thought of the middle aged man jamming himself into her, the two of them crying out together, was a natural reaction to the situation. It didn’t mean anything.

Now Jan is looking at her again, so Hana drops her hand and grins. “Don’t worry Jan, if I am ever even slightly alarmed by anything Frank does, or anyone else for that matter, I’ll bring it to your attention.”

Her own face relaxing a bit, Jan says, “Well good. I don’t want to keep harping on it, but I’ve seen some men in similar situations behave poorly being in an office with such a pretty young woman all day every day.” After she speaks, Jan’s eyes go slightly wider, and she glances away.

“I have to tell you Jan, a few of the other women have talked about it before and we do appreciate how seriously you take that sort of thing. It means a lot to us that we know you won’t ignore a harassment-type situation if we bring it up to you.”

Now somewhat embarrassed, Jan turns and gives a half shrug. Hana wonders how much of that sudden bashfulness is from the compliment and how much is from calling her a ‘pretty young woman’. Was that a slip? Jan has always been very correct in her personal relationships with her staff, and Hana realizes she knows almost nothing about her personal life.

The conversation over, both women finished getting dressed. Hana was taking her time and, as she often did, Jan was dressed in a flash and out of the change room with a casual nod and a goodbye.

Sighing to herself, Hana picked up her gym bag and wondered if Frank was going to hang around to talk some more. It would be best if he was just gone, rather than risk Jan seeing him loitering around again like a perv creeping on his younger office mate. But still, Hana couldn’t help but hope he did. Even though she was dreading their next awkward conversation (hey Frank, is your penis pointing at something on my face or are you just happy to see me ha ha ha) she still wanted to talk to him more.

It was just so warm and calming when he was around. Jeez, if she didn’t know better Hana would think she did have a daddy complex or something!