by Anita Claire
His hands run along my body leaving a trail of shimmering excitement in their path. I gasp, all reason escapes me as his lips leave mine. He runs a trail of kisses to my ear, I giggle from the sensation along my jaw. He continues kissing me down my neck to my clavicle. My head automatically tips as I arch my back from desire. His hands are on my breasts as his tongue licks my nipple, causing me to shiver. I sit up and cup his head as he sucks my breast into his mouth.
His eyes look up at me, as I nod, then in a voice I don’t recognize I gasp out, “Don’t stop, please, don’t stop.”
He smiles as I lean back and close my eyes, enjoying the feelings that have awoken inside of me as he moves farther down. I spread my legs. I want more; I want that feeling, the one you get when you lose yourself to an orgasm. His gentle kisses run down my stomach making my diaphragm tight. I gasp loudly from pleasure. His fingers run up my inner thigh. My back arches again as his fingers reach my core, move my bikini bottoms out of the way, and probe my folds. He’s surprisingly skilled, or was it that Brandon was just clumsy? Whatever, his touch feels good, I crave more.
Not holding back I sort of whisper-yell, “Don’t stop.”
He chuckles as he continues to probe and play with me. The tingles move into spasms as an orgasm starts to form.
Gray stops touching me.
I gasp out, “No, I’m almost there.”
His soft voice is near my ear as he says, “Please let me join you.”
I nod. Then I hear a condom rip. Where did he keep that? While slowly opening my eyes, I see his intense face floating over me. I reach my hand up and cup his head as my lips reach for his. Instinctively, I wrap my legs around his hips. My orgasm is so close, I crave the release. I want more friction. His fingers intensify as I gasp from their contact. I feel him run his dick along my folds, finding its way inside of me. Quickly he plunges into me. I gasp from the pain of his size and the shock of the fast, hard movement. He starts rocking in and out, and the friction feels heavenly as my orgasm picks up and continues to peak. My breath is heavy as I hear myself letting out gasps in time with his rhythm. The wooden chaise creaks along with us. My orgasm explodes, causing my legs to shimmy and shake and a fountain of tingles to run up my body, down my legs and arms, with a deep buzzing feeling that explodes through the top of my head. I’m still gasping when he stops rocking. I hold onto him tightly as the sensory overload runs throughout my body. I had no idea an orgasm could explode and buzz like this. I kiss his face, neck, and shoulder. They feel damp from our activity.
He finally pulls away from me, whispering in my ear, “Hita, I need some air.”
I nod as I release him with a storm of apologies, as the cool air runs over my still shaking body.
He holds my hand, looks me in the eyes, and smiles.
I barely spit out, “That was amazing.”
He nods, then leans down and softly kisses my cheek. Then he says, “It was for me too. But I need to go.”
I nod again, I have no idea where he’s going. I’m so overwhelmed by these sensations I don’t have the presence of mind to ask. I hear him adjust the umbrella so it’s still over me. Then he runs his fingers down my side as I shiver, smile, and fall asleep.
***
My mom is standing over me with a disapproving look. In her sing-song voice she says, “Hita, is this how a good Indian girl behaves?” I’m rolling my eyes as I wake up, and look around. My mom of course is back in Chicago; Gray is gone, and I’m naked, in Juliette’s backyard. Shit, what if someone had come home? I quickly wrap myself in one of the towels, grabbing my clothes as I run into the house to take a shower. Now I wonder where Gray went. Damn, I don’t even have his number, and what do I say to Juliette? Do I tell her he came over? Do I tell her we had sex? I let the water from the shower run over me as my emotions run, totally confused.
Chapter 8 – The New Job
My new roommate is Kristi. Conveniently for me, her roommate is in the process of moving in with her boyfriend. Even better, Kristi’s apartment is only a couple of miles from my new job.
Kristi lived on my floor freshman year. She has light brown shoulder length hair, caramel colored eyes, and a slim build. She was a computer science major; I still can’t figure out how she put up with all the brogrammers. She’s now developing iOS apps at some company that’s doing some kind of disruptive technology. Though I have no idea what it is, since she’s under a non-disclosure and can’t discuss anything.
Since I haven’t yet bought a car, I ride my bike to the office. No one in my group shows up before ten while they all stay until after eight at night. Since our cafeteria is open for dinner, it’s a lot easier to work late and eat at work, saving me from buying or preparing any food at home. After getting home, I wind up staying up till one as I meet up online with friends to play games.
At work I sit next to Chris and Avery. It’s kind of hard to believe that they’ve only known each other since joining this company last year. They’re like twins separated at birth. They’re always talking about sports. When it comes to programming, Avery has an amazing memory and can write a lot of code, while Chris is much slower, but much more accurate. He also is better at debugging all the mistakes everyone else makes. He likes to wear headphones when he works, then munches really loudly on chips. I’m thinking of getting headphones just to cancel out Chris’s chewing noise.
I’ve started taking a midafternoon break to play ping pong against some of the other engineers. Growing up we had a ping pong table in our basement. My brother and I used to have these crazy tournaments. Two Chinese guys who are regulars play well, though everyone else plays a lot better than me. The ping pong guys are nice enough, using me as their easy warm up. I figure if I keep it up I’ll improve. I hope that making my afternoon break ping pong instead of dessert will save me from putting on the dreaded fifteen.
My third week of work, Sid, our engineering VP, holds an all hands meeting taking over the cafeteria. There are probably seventy people in the room. He introduces all the new employees, having each of us stand up while everyone politely claps. Looking around the room I only see three other women. A third of the men are Indian, another third are Asian, and the remaining third are White. The only Black guy is our Chief Legal Counsel, who gives us a talk at the beginning of the meeting on copyright, copyleft, and freeware, detailing what code we can use.
Stopping at the dessert bar after the meeting, I debate if I should get something. Colin, a tall, lean, nice looking guy with olive complexion and a hint of blond in his dark hair comes over. “Hey Hita, will you be at the tables at four?”
With a big smile I say, “Yes.”
He nods and a pleased smile spreads across his face. “Sweet, I’ll see you then.”
It makes me feel great that the ping pong guys actually want me to show up. Deciding against a dessert, I head over to the table set up with company swag—all the company merchandise. They actually have good quality bike helmets with our company logo emblazoned into the plastic. This is thrilling since my helmet is ancient and I was thinking I should be buying a new one. As I check sizes, one of the women who looks about my age comes over and introduces herself.
“Hey, you’re new here? I’m Kami,” she says in a friendly manner.
“Oh, hi, I’m Hita. I just started working in the Trend Analysis group.”
The other young woman engineer joins Kami, introducing herself, “I’m Caroline, Kami and I work in the Dashboard group.” She looks around before noting, “There aren’t too many women over here in Engineering. You should join us for lunch.”
I nod before answering, “Yeah that would be nice.”
I’m used to working with guys, but it’s nice to meet up with some other women. I’ve been eating lunch with Mark, Avery, and Chris. I’ve yet to figure out if those guys talk about anything besides work and baseball. At home I stream the movie Money Ball, hoping it will give me enough background information to follow their conversations.
The day
after the engineering meeting, I get an e-mail from Kami inviting me to join her and Carolyn for lunch. Now I wonder if that would break team etiquette, since I’ve spent the last few weeks eating with the guys.
Chapter 9 – The Rules
Since Juliette is living at home this summer, we wind up spending a lot of time on our weekends by her pool. Even better, her parents’ refrigerator is always full. As we start talking about the guys where we each work, her mom joins us.
Juliette turns to her and asks, “Any recommendations about dating guys you meet at work?”
“Tread lightly,” her mom replies.
Juliette looks surprised by this comment. “You worked with Dad, that’s how you two met.”
“Yeah, but I knew your dad for three years before we started dating.”
Juliette’s jaw drops. “I had no idea. You liked a guy for three years before you started dating?”
Her mom laughs before telling us, “No, I knew him for three years. That’s what’s so good about meeting a guy at work. You have a long time to get to know him. I was a project manager. We both got sent to Munich, Germany on a project with Siemens. It was only the two of us Americans. All the Germans left the office by six to go home and have dinner with their families. Three weeks of eating dinner together and spending the weekend sightseeing...” She pauses and smiles before continuing, “…changed our point of view.”
“Then I take it you don’t see any problems with co-workers dating?” I state.
Her mom takes a deep breath as I watch her formulate her response. “I wouldn’t recommend using work as your hook-up pool. Behaviors outside of work can easily be talked about at work and ruin your credibility. Also, if you start dating your boss, or your boss’s boss, you’ll either need to move jobs so you report to someone outside of your boyfriend’s chain of command, or you’ll need to leave the company. A manager will need to report a relationship with an underling to HR and legal. There are a number of high profile executives who’ve lost their job for dating people who work for them and didn’t report the relationship. The last thing you want is to have your name associated with a scandal. No one will hire you, you’ll become too high risk.”
“Dating an executive will get you fired?” Juliette asks in surprise.
“Typically, it’s not the dating that ever gets anyone fired. It’s the breakup that gets people. It opens companies up to too many legal issues. Boards and VC’s think if an executive is dating an underling, they’re not thinking strategically.”
“But what about co-workers?” I ask.
She crosses her arms and leans her body against the counter before responding. “No one cares if you keep it low profile and out of the office. Again, it’s the breakup that causes problems.” Looking at Juliette she continues, “Your dad and I worked in different buildings, and reported to different VPs. When we got back to the states and started dating, we kept our relationship out of work. When your dad asked me to marry him, a lot of people didn’t even know we were dating. Everyone was very supportive. Companies don’t mind stable relationships. What they don’t like is drama.”
After getting home that night, I think about what her mom said. I figure I’ll play it cool and see if any of the guys at work stand out. As I sit in front of my computer, I get an idea. I navigate over to an Indian dating site. As I fill out the online form, I realize that the problem I have is I know how Indian guys think. It’s almost the opposite of American guys. On the first or second date they’ll ask me if I plan on getting married. If I tell them I’m only twenty-three and want to date, they’ll consider me a “bad” girl. We’ll date, but they won’t introduce me to their family. If I tell them yes, I want to get married, they’ll have me meet their family and friends on the next date, and we’ll be on the fast track to a wedding. This depresses me. As I stare at the form, I realize I want to be like Meredith and Juliette. I want a long term boyfriend and no pressure to marry. Closing down the dating site’s window, I figure if I haven’t found someone by the time I turn thirty, I’ll get back on the site and find myself a husband.
I lean back in my chair looking up at the ceiling. I feel confused and perplexed about Gray. I figured with his job this summer in New York and going to school in Berkeley, he wasn’t up for a girlfriend. I thought there was more of a connection than just an afternoon hookup. I never did tell Juliette. What was I going to say? My mind then moves to Brandon. It feels like ages since we broke up. In December it will be a year. I never told my parents about him, they would have freaked out. Unfortunately, Brandon was a lot more fun when we were dating long distance via computer games than when he lived in town. After he graduated and moved back to Palo Alto, our relationship fell apart. Mostly it was because I was busy studying nights and weekends. Brandon wanted more of my time than I could give. Now that I’m working, I wonder if it will be easier to have time for a boyfriend.
Chapter 10 – The Gamers Life
Kristi, my roommate, and I are working out great. We both have similar schedules, mostly because we’re both gamers. We enjoy getting home from work and playing on our computers. We both laugh and share our experiences. After helping Kristi design a rather interesting world on her Minecraft server, she opens it up in survival mode to a bunch of her friends. I’ve never met them in real life, but they sure are sneaky online. We’ve been spending the last few nights battling them and the creepers. Even though everyone has an online name, I can usually identify the guys from women. Guys spend most of their time blowing things up rather than acquiring resources and maintaining their health. They also seem to allow themselves to be more open for attacks. After a few days of all the activity, her world is starting to look like Afghanistan. Kristi takes her server out of survival mode so we can put it back together.
With Stephan back in town, and the local princesses all partnered up with boyfriends, I’m relieved Kristi is single, since it gives me someone to hang out with. Saturday evening Kristi invites me to join her as she heads out to Game Kastle. It’s located in a non-descript strip plaza with rows of games on shelves and a glass counter in the back. Over the counter is a sign with the listing of different board games being played in their break out rooms.
Kristi smiles and gives me a wink as she hands the guy at the counter a couple of tickets and tells me, “I’ll cover you for your first time.”
Walking through the doorway to my right, we pass through a number of basic rooms, the types with gray industrial carpeting, white walls, and acoustic tile ceilings. Each room has about ten folding tables lined with folding chairs. On the walls are game posters. By each of the doors is a whiteboard with the name of the game being played marked in colorful lettering. Next to the whiteboard is a table with extra game pieces and boards needed for playing that room’s game.
As we look at each of the boards Kristi asks, “Which game do you want to play?”
I shrug.
With a confident air she says “they’re all board games. I have a Warhammer 40K set with me. Let’s play that.”
We sit down at a table as Kristi takes her backpack off and starts emptying out the contents. It’s a bunch of miniature fantasy fighters. As she’s explaining the rules a couple of typical gamer type guys in their twenties come over to our table. Without much eye contact they look at her set up. They’re both medium height, medium weight, with the physique and skin tone of someone who sits in front of a computer and never goes outside. One guys is wearing an Intel shirt while the other’s T-shirt has a Cisco logo on it.
The Intel guy asks, “You playing?”
Kristi looks up and with a game face says, “sure.”
The guys set up their side of the table. Kristi plays one round, then has me play another round.
The Intel guy says, “two out of three?”
Kristi nods, and then introduces us while the guys introduce themselves as Brian and Tim.
Kristi tells them, “Be easy on Hita, she’s a newbie.”
By the end of the next g
ame I think I understand the strategies it takes to win. During the game no one talks about work or really anything other than mumbling to their partner, I assume about strategies.
As we drive back home, I reflect about my tendency to get caught up on living online. In college the princesses pulled me out, made me more social. I think Kristi is good for me; she is pulling me out too.
Kristi breaks my thoughts as she asks, “What do you think?”
I give her a thumbs up. “This was fun. Playing with people sitting in front of you really adds another dimension of challenge to a game. When I’m in front of my computer, I don’t need to guard my facial expressions and emotions. Brian and Tim had some interesting tells. After a while I started figuring out their strategy by watching their body language. We should play against each other to see what tells we’re broadcasting. I bet the better players are really good at reading body language.”
“Yeah, it’s kind of like poker.”
“But without all that cigar smoke.”
“Do they really smoke cigars at poker games?”
“They do in the movies.”
Chapter 11 – Work
At work Mark, Avery, and Chris get busy on a project with the “math guys.” I’m not sure who the math guys are, but those guys spend a lot of time in a conference room on the other side of the building working on some crazy complicated algorithms.
Since Mark, Avery, and Chris are doing something different during the day, I use the opportunity to join Kami and Caroline for lunch. They’re both nice and friendly; they’re also twenty-three and this is their first job too. Lunch with them is a lot more enjoyable than listening to all the baseball trivia.
Kami and Caroline work for Sherry, the other woman in Engineering and the only female engineering manager. They both have great things to say about her. I have very few things to say about Roger, since he’s either in his office or in meetings. It feels like Mark is more my boss.
