Longboard (Desk Surfing Series Book 1)

by Davila Eggert

  And then it happened. He came for a bit and kept coming. It wasn't that subtle release that some guys do. It was more the release-the-hounds type of motion. He grabbed the back of my thighs and leaned back. Then he did that holy intervention moment where his head dipped back and his eyes rolled up and he looked like he was in communion with some higher power. I could see this through the fabric of my dress and through the pink light. And there was a long exhale and then he started to breath quickly. He came hard, so much so that he pulled out and fell over. It wasn't like the first time. He didn't seem to have much energy left. He gripped my wrist and did a body rotation. He was like most guys, after he finished he didn't seem to care much about me. I was used to it. The only question I was faced with was whether to dress or fully undress. I still had my heels on and my panties weren't even off. My dress was wound up but it was still on. I took it as a sign that maybe I should dress and get out of Longboard's hotel room. I like sex on someone else's turf. Because I could always get the fuck out if I wanted. And I don't know why but that's what I felt like doing. I up-anchored. I wiggled myself side-to-side until my dress came back into position. I slid my panties off, not on. It was early in the morning and I was betting that anyone in position to notice I wasn't wearing underwear would be too drunk to notice or care. Longboard looked half asleep, maybe it was the pink light. Somehow it was still creating illusions, even though they were getting old. I guess different light has different maturity. White like accepts everything as it is, must be mature. But the pink light was screwing around. I could see Longboard's eyes were open but the pink light made his eyes look bloodshot. He looked stoned. It made it hard to take anything he said about his past seriously. I had to remind myself it was the pink light's fault.

  "Are you leaving?" asked Longboard.

  "Have to."

  "Why?" asked Longboard.

  "Got a goldfish to feed and I didn't bring anything to change into."

  "I can get you something from the shops downstairs," said Longboard.

  "Save the money, make me out a raincheck for a dinner somewhere I haven't been."

  "I can do that or we can turn on the Jacuzzi," said Longboard, "It's salt, not chlorine."

  "You have good relations with hotel management?"

  "Of course," said Longboard, "I'm a Kula Select Member."

  "I don't know what that means."

  "Only Kula Select Members can get suites on this floor," said Longboard, "They're all different in styling but all rated five-star in the suite category."

  "So you can get a room with a Jacuzzi without much fuss."

  "I can," said Longboard.

  "Set the date and I'll show. But it's enough for now." I started to move toward the door.

  "You sure?" asked Longboard.

  "No, but this is me exiting." When a rich guy wants you to jump in the jacuzzi that's code for him asking you to float his boat--defined as you holding your breath underwater and sucking him off, while he smokes a cigar or drinks champagne or enjoys some other rich prick-like perk. I opened the door and took two steps through it and let it close behind me. I wasn't so sure that I wanted to leave but I knew the first rule of desk surfing, Always leave them wanting. If they felt like they had their fill, why would they cough up anything else? And Longboard still hadn't made that announcement about the office manager spot. I didn't want him thinking he had anything sewn up with me. I needed him thinking he had more to give. Because he did. I needed him to realize that.

  Chapter 6

  It was Saturday morning and hours before the sun was to come up. I felt blessed. Going home with a guy was always risky, especially when he wanted something more than what was advertised. But being in a lux hotel with my ride parked outside was a perfect way to refrigerate my cheesecake for another day. It seemed Longboard liked my cake anyway. It made my night to leave a taste in his mouth. I wanted to end on a comma, not a period. The point was to become a delicacy. He had the cash to pay for delicacies. In fact, he seemed to consider himself a connoisseur. Hotels, cars, amenities, all seemed to be carefully chosen and expensive. It made me reconsider that night on his desktop, when I was fortunate enough not to get a splinter in my board of a butt. Maybe I was a little more accurate than Jessie. Her argument was that Longboard was stressed and grabbed me like low-hanging fruit. But I still didn't think it worked that way with him. Maybe when he was twenty-one and couldn't control his impulses or his life. But he was old enough to understand the consequences of impulse. He ran the numbers. That's what his business was all about, running the numbers. And then he made sound decisions based on what the numbers said. That was what his success had amounted to, the benefit of good decisions. And I'm no hater. Like I said, I got a lot of love for guys who get it done. Sitting on the beach with girlfriends looking at trophy traffic was a hand I played already. I still liked looking at sculpted muscle on a wave-rider as he came out of the water, illuminated by the mid-morning sun. The problem was you never knew what a dude like that had going for himself, besides being fucking hot. And spending time riding ocean hills didn't leave a lot of time for refining tastes. I used to surf with my cousin and his friends and we'd always come off the waves famished then go grab a Big Mac. But after fifteen years, my cousin and those of his friends who still lived that beach bum lifestyle were still making runs to Mickey D's. I still popped in every once and a while, but only to the McCafé because the coffee was cheaper than Starbucks. But I didn't eat there. That much I should make clear. But my cousin and his boys still turned in for the Big Mac. And it wasn't like they did drive-thru. They actually went to McDonald's and sat down to eat. At least when I went to Mickey D's for coffee, I got mine to go. That's why all of them were dating or divorced. And they didn't date for that long.

  But Longboard was a grown up. He did nightclubs but he wasn't some 30-something standing in line saying, Can we get in? That's where my cousin would be in a few more years when he hit thirty. Longboard was made and self-made. He had arrived. He knew a lifestyle that most guys his age couldn't manage even if they could afford it. Our rendezvous in the hotel was classy. He left the party a good forty-five minutes after I did. I guessed because he arrived to the suite about fifty minutes after I did--nothing out of the ordinary. And then there was the thing with the name, a room rented for one under a name that could be male or female. And he came in when the front desk staff changed. He covered his tracks--business-like. There was something about a man who knew what he was doing. But Longboard wasn't the only one.

  I spent my weekend indoors, which was a self-inflicted punishment because the weather was gorgeous, Saturday and Sunday. But I didn't want anyone from the office to see me. I didn't want to be at the back of anyone's mind, for sure not the front. I just wanted the night at Osmi to diffuse and no one needed to know where I was when I left. As far as I was concerned, I was a homebody. I read half of a budgeting book for women, designed to teach women to be more frugal. But then it started offering advice I already knew, like buy store brand instead of name brand. Some of the advice was not useful at all, like go to the beauty school to get a discounted haircut. If you're in marketing, 60% of your work is your look. If you don't have it together why should anyone assume the product you're standing behind is any good. I needed a practiced haircut, not a practicing haircut. So I didn't finish the book but it served its purpose. I wanted to feel like I was moving forward or doing some self-improvement wise. You didn't get that feeling by sitting around watching Bridget Jones. You got it by learning something new--making some improvement. But Bridget was my bitch though. I just couldn't fake a British accent like Renée Zellweger. I might be a little further in life if I could. It worked for Hillary Brooke, my grandma's favorite actress. She faked a British accent to get more roles in the 40's.

  My weekend was so monotonous, I needed a break from it. That's why I was actually looking forward to going to work on Monday. It was a viable big-girl reason to leave the house. I even laid out my clothes to wear, which was
something I hadn't done since my first few months at Key Way. I usually just started the wardrobe selection while I drank my morning coffee. I needed that kick to be able to match my colors. Without caffeine, I was essentially colorblind. And that included patterns, as well. If I ever came out of the house wearing a striped top with a floral skirt, it meant I ran out of coffee. But I had my black skirt and light top, which I had only worn a few times. It was something called Martian Pink. Sometimes I think I picked the wrong industry. Is that really what they do in the fashion industry? Come up with more names for colors. I could do that better than anyone. I would just not drink coffee, be colorblind and come up with whatever bullshit sounded good, regardless of the color. I'd get shit like Post Office Purple and Man-Cancelling Maroon. I could do that job.

  But I just jumped in my Protege and went to work in the simple combo of black skirt matched with Martian Pink. The weekend weather was perfect but Monday had some weird looking clouds. They didn't look like rain clouds but they weren't the kind you liked to see either. They were those bastards with no home-training. You never knew what they were gonna do. They weren't white but they weren't dark either. They were that wispy almost-yellow type nonsense. Island folk always tried to pull omens out of the clouds. It was no different than pulling stuff out of your ass during a presentation--sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't. I took the same route to the office as always but couldn't shake the clouds from my consciousness. I don't know why, but it made the drive to work seem longer somehow.

  I parked my car as always but I did something different. There was a cafe on the mezzanine level of the building that sold locally grown coffee. And I already had my coffee. But I bought a cup anyway. I was a coffee-drinker but I always made my coffee at home. There was about a 60% mark up on coffee when someone else made it. That's why I never bought ready-made coffee. But so many others did. It made me feel like a fit-in. And I guess that's how I needed to feel. The Catch Me If You Can with Longboard, was like a workout. Not between the sheets because we didn't do anything between the sheets. It was always on top of something. But there were the ups and downs. It was like Longboard was sexing my emotions or sexting them. And I was sexting back. It was actually the most complicated desk surfing I'd done. I had done a bit of what was referred to as desk surfing in the high school cafeteria. I went golfing with Jessie and her dad and some of his buddies my second year of college. I basically let them show me how to hold the club and how to drive the ball and laughed at jokes that were a generation over my head. It got me a summer internship at an ad agency, which is when I decided to switch to communications as a major. But Longboard was the first time I did any desk surfing in the literal sense--banging the boss on his desk. And I was trying to leverage it to get a promotion. That was Social Sciences 101 textbook desk surfing. That meant if it didn't work out, I could go back to school at Manoa as a lecturer in social sciences. Or maybe that was me trying to put my usual positive spin on it, like any good marketing manager should. My mood went up, maybe it was the coffee. I really didn't need it. But it made me feel like any number of the suit-wearing ants filing into office buildings, filing into elevators--all across Honolulu.

  The fact that I was leg-braiding the owner of the company didn't matter for that elevator ride up. I just felt like another member of the rank-and-file, holding my coffee until it was cool enough to drink. That was the mindset. And it lasted until the elevator doors pulled open. I came out and made a left. I swung my head back in the direction of the men's room to make sure Longboard wasn't coming out. I turned and looked forward to be sure that he wasn't coming out of our office suite either. Then I swung my head backwards again for a second look. Longboard might have been somewhere but he was nowhere to be seen. And that made me uncomfortable. I just wanted to see him to sense his energy, to see if we were hot or cold--cooling or heating up. But no such luck. As I walked in the door, I saw Romy sitting at her desk. The look on her face wasn't the normal chipper-to-be-at-work-and-away-from-controlling-husband look.

  "Morning Dawn," said Romy. That always sounded strange, even though I was always called Dawn, never a nickname.

  "What's up?"

  "There's a memo that I'm supposed to drop at ten-thirty," said Romy, "But I really think you need to read it before everyone else does." That cloak-and-dagger approach by someone like Romy made me short of breath.

  "Ok, thanks for the heads up." That was all I knew to say. I had no idea what the heads up was all about. But I had to be thankful for it. And it was odd because I needed to see the memo first according to Romy. But she had already seen it and no one else. Ouch! It had to come from Longboard. There was no other point of origin that would cause that kind of stir in Romy from her usual personality. I never met her husband but the word around the office was that he was controlling. Controlling is very generic though. But she always seemed to be the happiest person in the office, which helped fan the flames of the rumor that her husband was some sort of a brute. Because it wasn't so much that Romy seemed happy; she seemed to feel comfortable at work. And I guess that comfort made her happy, which just proves that happiness is a very relative concept.

  I was actually not so worried about the memo. It caught me off guard when Romy said it. I had an initial shock because I could only think about some sort of power play by Longboard to get even for leaving him stuck in the hotel suite. Maybe he really wanted me to float his boat in the Jacuzzi. But I couldn't hold my breath that long, at least not long enough for his dong.

  But I started to think maybe I should have sucked his prick. I might have drowned but at least I could avoid a Monday-morning memo. Those were always the worst kind. I went to my quad and let my computer come on and messed up my login ID the first time. It was jitters I guess. I almost never messed up my login ID, cuz I never changed it. But I started to calm myself down when I thought about how Longboard did things. Like with Brianna, she knew she was gone before everyone else did. So if Longboard was firing me, why would he let Romy know by giving her a memo to send out. If he wanted to let me go, he had balls enough to do it himself.

  I opened my Outlook and saw that email. It had Romy Kumana-Hitori as the sender, which was comforting. If it were something earth-shaking, like Longboard was closing the company, then he would've written the memo from his own account. I guess workspace rationale came into play and I was just a few inches above calm. Memos always meant something was changing but not necessarily for the worse. The memo read:

  Key Way Team,

  As you know, we've been without an office manager for many months and I have relied on many people to step up and fulfill certain roles during the interim. I know that required a lot of you to take on a larger load than you normally do but not one of you has complained in the four plus months since we've been organized this way. Everyone should be commended for their efforts and I mean everyone. In recognition of your efforts, I have sped up my decision-making to give you all more time to focus on your roles here at Key Way and to have more time with your families. Shifting duties for the last few months has required many of you to stay later than usual. In the long-run, I mean to organize a luncheon to thank you all for your extra effort in smoothing this transition. And I would like to announce that I've decided to have Dawn Krizman step up as our new office manager in replacement of Brianna Koh. I also regret to inform that our PR Rep, Malia Kamealoha, has decided to leave our firm for medical reasons. We wish her well and she is in our thoughts and prayers. As for me, I am going to be taking some extended holiday because the departure of Ms. Koh has also added more to my plate and I feel I need some time to digest. Please do the best you can in welcoming Ms. Krizman into her new role, as it will be her biggest transition yet within our company. Best of luck to each and every one of you.

  Go Key Way!

  I felt like laughing. I was sure to everyone else it would read like a surprise. To me it read like comedy. I left Longboard's suite in a rush and got promoted to office manager. And apparently he w
asn't that upset about it. Maybe he just needed time to think about it because he wasn't coming into the office for the foreseeable future. I don't know if it was the best Monday-morning memo or the worst. Not that I didn't want the job, I just never fully imagined how it would play out. I guess I always thought it would be the kind of thing he would announce on a Friday at 4 pm and I could just hear congratulations for an hour before we went and did a happy hour somewhere. It didn't make business sense to announce a promotion at happy hour, you did that kind of stuff in the office. But it would've been great to have that casual atmosphere to absorb the shock of the blow--no such luck.

  I sat at my desk thinking of how I was going to handle the thing. I had about two hours before the memo dropped and then there was about an hour and fifteen minute gossip pipeline around the office before everyone knew what everyone else knew. So around lunchtime everyone would know I was now the third highest-ranking person on both sides of the suite. The VP of Actuarial Services was technically above me, but she was on the other side with the bean-counters. I would rarely see her. And then there was Longboard. He was officially stylized as the President and CEO of Key Way and the VP of Marketing and Development, which made him my direct manager. He was still my direct manager, even though I was under him as an assistant marketing manager, he being the VP of Marketing and Development. Now, I was under him because he was the President and CEO. It was all formalities I guess but the thing I was most wondering about was Brianna's empty office. Should I just move into it at ten-thirty when the memo dropped? Should I stay late and do it or do it at the end of the week? I really liked the idea of doing it over the weekend because no one would have to notice me doing it. That way it could be like, one day I'm not the office manager and the next day I am.