by Jamie Knight
Back in her room, Tory paced the small distance thinking then would pause to look at every item of clothing she had with her laid out on the bed. Her mind flashed again and again on the idea of wearing the sexiest things she had with her, just in case but it would never be mistaken for actual swimwear. In no version of her indulgent projections did she see herself strutting into the pool or Rec Center in panties and pumps like a prostitute if Trace and or Dan were around. Pacing ensued once again until there was a knocking at her door.
Very much as she did back at the W, Mahira barged right into her room the moment she opened the door. She had a shopping bag with her.
“You went out?” Tory asked.
“Yeah. So did Dan,” she told her.
“What’s it like out there?”
“Bargains and deals,” Mahira said, pulling three different swimsuits out of the bag.
“Oh my god. You’re insane,” she teased.
“Right, you’re not standing here wondering what you’d look like in a sports bra and a thong”
They laughed a moment.
“Choose your weapon,” Mahira announced, holding up the bright latex swimwear.
***
The pool was not only heated, but it was also lit from within. Bouncy blue light was thrown all over the modern white room, lending its somber hue to the partially translucent glass partition separating the pool from the corridor and the gym.
When Mahira and Tory walked in, they froze for a practically imperceptible moment as they noticed Harlan Dawes at the opposite end, setting up a stand for his tablet near the pool’s edge.
He turned and saw Tory. He waved politely at them then set up the tablet on its stand. With a touch the tablet brightens. Harlan pulled off a brightly hued polo shirt displaying a ripple of tanned muscle before lowering himself in the water nearby. Harlan exhaled then sipped something from a mug near his shoes and shirt as he glanced up at the series of icon designs advancing in Slideshow.
As the young women watched him, Mahira stripped down to a white one piece, in striking contrast to her tan skin. She jumped in with a bold splash, then lapped the pool.
Harlan didn’t look up from his work. Mahira called Tory to join her. Tory seemed hesitant. Harlan noticed. He finished his drink and submerged.
Under the water, he swam to the other side where Tory waited, hardly able to breathe as she watched him approach. Harlan came up from the water, glistening.
“I’m Harlan Dawes. This is my pool. As soon as this the COVID thing started, I ordered twice the chlorine be put in this water. Nothing could live in it,” he assured her with a grin.
Tory took off her glasses and loosened her hair. Out of modesty, she turned away from Harlan, lifting her oversized shirt over her head and didn't notice his jaw practically drop as he gazed upon the faintest blonde fuzz above her tailbone.
Mahira swam up to him and put her hand on his shoulder as she introduced herself, but it was clear to her that Dawes had become transfixed watching her new friend adjust the slightly small top over her very ample young breasts.
“She’s from Wisconsin,” Mahira said, as Harlan turned to her for the first time.
“Yes. I know. I’ve taken an interest in all the contest winners, Ms. Shah, and I’d like to take a moment to apologize to both of you for missing the award ceremony. We had a number of issues that sprang up here that required my personal attention,” Harlan explained while looking directly at Tory as she lowered herself in the water.
Tory’s eyes seemed to glow in Harlan’s attention, Mahira thought, or perhaps it was the light in the water. A warm fuzzy sensation embraced the trio as pheromones danced magnifying the intensity of an agreeable silence between Haran and Tory that immediately made Mahira very envious.
For Tory the real world crashed down upon her enchantment as Dan burst through the door, clearly intoxicated, before leaping in up into the air with enough buoyancy to yell “Cannonball!” before landing in an awful, percussive belly flop that not only drenched everyone but sent the water lapping up over the edges of the pool on both sides.
Dan emerged from the water face first and spat a burst of water out his mouth as if trying to mimic a whale surfacing to clear his blow hole and began to giggle until he saw who was with the women.
“Oh, I uh, Mr. Dawes. I um,” Dan stammered in embarrassment.
“That was the worst cannon ball I ever saw,” Harlan said, beginning to laugh as he plucked his sneaker out of the water.
Mahira splashed at Dan as he retreated in a backstroke. Tory was fixed on Harlan’s smile until he caught her gaze and returned it. Unable to offer anything witty, Tory submerged and began to swim away, towards the far end of the pool. Taking advantage of the playfulness in the air, Harlan pursued.
The door opened and Trace Linder took a peek inside before entering, then slipped in with a mix and match six pack of craft beers. Mahira climbed out of the pool and strutted towards Trace in her bright swimsuit before grabbing a beer. Tory rose from the water at the opposite end, catching his eye.
“Come and join the party?” Mahira offered, as Trace gazed across the room to see Harlan climb out of the pool.
“I’ll dip my feet in. Who is that with Harlan?”
“Victoria,” Mahira explained, as they watched Harlan wrap his towel around Tory’s shoulders.
Trace tempted Mahira with his selection of fancy beers and she nodded them away.
When Harlan turned to them, he waved Trace over. With an uncertain look on his face, Trace approached, walking along the pool as Dan did a lazy backstroke in the opposite direction. Trace could see the light of sudden enthusiasm on Harlan’s face and wondered if it was related to the images he’d just finished or the excited looking young beauty he had clearly overlooked.
“Did you have a chance to look through the latest from this afternoon?” Trace asked Harlan, while still a few paces away.
“I was just looking at them again, as a matter of fact, when I got a really great idea,” Harlan said, smiling widely.
“You’ve met Trace Linder, right?” Harlan asked Tory.
“Hi,” Tory said meekly.
“I found myself on the verge of talking shop with Stadler, because, as you know, I truly suck at small any form of small talk, when it occurred to me that we have a group of very talented young people in house for the duration.”
“Well, yes…” Trace concurred.
“Some fresh eyes on the icon design couldn’t hurt,” Harlan clarified, as delicately as possible, sensing Trace’s unease.
“We still have more than a week, plus Brian and Janis will start working from home on Monday,” Trace offered.
“I know. But you know how it is,” Harlan remarked, turning to include Tory as well before continuing, “Part of a deadline’s span must include what we like to call acceptance time, around here. So often, we come up with something we think is great, then wonder if it is great, then doubt its greatness, then repeat the cycle.”
Tory laughed. Harlan grinned in awe, upon seeing how the beauty of her face when she let herself go, clearly disarmed Trace Linder.
“That’s, well, yes but, Ok. Let’s give it ago,” he stammered, no longer able to find the logical threads of any argument he could make against working with her as Mahira walked up within earshot.
“What are we giving a go?” Mahira asked, excitedly.
“I was just telling Trace that I am inviting all the contest winners to come into the design studio tomorrow and give us their take on how to update the iGo App Icon. It will be like an internship. Or temporary employment, so to speak.”
“Oh my god, That’s amazing! We are going to work at NextThing.Net! You’ve just turned our resumes into gold, Mr. Dawes, Gold!” Mahira said beaming, then called out across the pool, “Dan!”
Trace Linder said nothing. He just chugged a Grapefruit IPA and jumped in the pool with his shirt on.
Chapter 10
Looking out over the city and its lights,
Harlan tried to quiet his mind, which was racing in so many directions. He looked out over the gentle slopes of streets bounding westward across the avenues but couldn't help wondering about the usefulness or importance of the iGo App as the length of the emergent quarantine scenario started to look indefinite.
He slowly walked down the steps to his sunken lounge taking in the slightly differing perspectives on the glittering cityscape. Harlan placed his phone in its base.
Certainly, allowances and grace periods were being considered by many agencies as the economic results of COVID-19 quarantine were being forecasted but Harlan wanted to hold himself and his business to a higher standard. This led him back once again to her. “Victoria,” Harlan said aloud, allowing himself to feel the pleasure that came in the mere thought of her. Smiling, he recalled the sound or her unbridled laugh, her complete surrender to it was so enticing.
Distracting him from further imaginings was the concern that Trace Linder might not be the right designer for the iGo app and couldn’t see that himself.
Trace had wanted to take it on personally at the very beginning and had welcomed the idea of being stuck at work for the duration. No matter how many times Harlan would look at Trace’s designs for the icon’s new look, all he saw was another version of the same thing.
There was nothing in any of them that gave him that sought after feeling of new, while still being recognized as the product. In giving some young talented people a shot at it, he knew there was a slim chance that he’d actually use any of their ideas but thought it might push Trace to think outside his own box.
Knowing that success in almost any venture required focus, Harlan hoped he could balance his interest in Victoria and still keep his deadline with the iGo App’s Icon. Having the two other contest winners involved still made the idea of having them weigh in on the icon’s design viable even if he were to stray a bit with her aboard.
From the phone a tone swelled in the room announcing a video call.
“Answer to monitor 1,” Harlan commanded.
On his huge flat screen monitor, three very attractive Asian women in black lingerie with red nails, lips and crimson smokey-eye makeup writhe around each other making out before one turned to the screen to speak to Harlan.
“Ready to get friendly with your Thursday Girls, Honey?” The Asian Madam teased.
Seeing an unfamiliar expression of uncertainty on her biggest client’s face, she reached out and exposed one of the younger women’s breasts, who immediately began to kiss and suckle at her own dark rising nipple.
“I’m a little on the busy side this week,” Harlan said, almost gazing absently at them as the Madam and a high cheekboned Mandarin looking woman completely strip the darker Pacific Island girl.
“There’s also the uh, quarantine thing to consider,” he added, half-heartedly.
They giggled and end the call abruptly, moving on in the commerce of the night. He switched the display to a security camera in the design studio to watch Tory poolside as she loosened her hair and went on to raising an oversized t-shirt to reveal her tantalizing young body.
“Repeat, loop, slow motion,” he ordered and dropped down on the sofa nearby as Tory appeared on the screen almost twice normal size, blonde tresses a sudden golden halo as she’d just shaken loose her hair.
By the time Harlan found himself gazing longingly at the combination of maddening curves of her hips, upper thighs and lower back, his erection tent-poled in his swimsuit. He imagined taking her hands in his and falling on one knee just behind her to rub his face and lips all over the peach fuzz at the small of her back.
Eyes closed, he imagined parting her slightly reluctant thighs to start kissing and tasting the nectar of her pleasure. Feeling the hot thin stickiness of his own natural pre lube, Harlan stood, pulled down his swimsuit, took the swollen crown of his penis in his fingers and imagined rubbing its engorged length all over the fine fuzz at her tailbone over and over, until being overcome with the sheer need to hold her down, boldly bunch her hair in his fist and penetrate her with savage abandon in order to set her free.
All he wanted to do was fuck her hard and fast and for a really long time. No other woman could compare to her; she was the only one he wanted. In his fantasy, he imagined playing with her nipples as he made her cum by fucking her tight, wet pussy.
The anticipation of experiencing her orgasm sent consuming pleasure through his body, resulting in a blissful eruption that needed to be cleaned from the monitor’s screen.
Chapter 11
From the moment the announcement Dawes had made poolside, all semblance of a party dissipated as the significance sank in and took hold. Even Dan sobered up somehow and climbed out.
The trio of contest winners stood outside the pool, practically huddling to form a strategy for taking on a challenge that could make their careers if handled well,
Tory couldn’t sleep. Initially she let Mahira come to her room so they could continue talking. Tory hoped that listening to Mahira would tire her out and keep her focused on the significance of what working with NextThing.Net meant, instead of the desire the exchange with Harlan had set off in her.
There had been a moment, before any conversation, in which she was certain by mere movements of his body and eyes, wherein Harlan had expressed some desires of his own. The magnitude of the man’s successes was so strong an indication that he would have his satisfaction with her, that it became difficult not to fantasize about what seemed a certainty.
After midnight, both she and Mahira came to the conclusion that being well rested would certainly be the best strategy, so they parted ways. When Mahira left, Tory wanted to sleep. She’d tried over and over but could not stop her mind from envisioning so many differing aspects of her future. Half of her imaginings would gradually degenerate into dark and fearful tales of failure in one area, bleeding over into other delightful anticipations.
The only peace came from getting a head start on the work. She sat up, doing searches, comparing icons and logo histories of iGo and other successful apps. If she were to stop, she would dwell on a kind of lightness she saw in Harlan which seemed to make his intensity so approachable.
Someone had been knocking at the door, apparently for some time, Tory thought, based on the aggressiveness to the knock. She had passed out on the bed scrolling a tablet and had a mark from the corner of the tablet pressed into her forehead when she opened the door to let in Ms. Kalinski, who had a black medical grade mask and black latex gloves on to match her usual severe appearance. The stern young woman refrained from entering, yet looked around the small room before speaking.
‘Today, Ms. Stadler, you and the other design contest winners are welcome to join Mr. Dawes and Mr. Linder. The facility has been sanitized for your protection. We have especially prepared workstations to ensure appropriate social distancing is followed at all times.”
“Thank you,” Tory said, yawning as Ms. Kalinski passed her a big plastic shopping bag.
“Further, after breakfast, you will report to the design studio wearing the masks and gloves in this plastic bag. You will also find a hand sanitizer you can keep in your room to use for any incidents prior to interacting with Mr. Dawes. Next week we will have the test kits here. Until then, we are in full quarantine and taking full safety precautions until we are notified otherwise.”
The difference in what the Design Studio looked like when she toured it during the workshops shocked her. The sterile emptiness made her feel the new set up’s cold severity to be an example of Ms. Kalinski’s range of power and influence over Dawe’s efforts.
Workstations set up with a bright ergonomic work perch were spaced far enough apart to prevent casual communication between them, more than satisfying the prevalent social distancing protocols.
At one end of the studio, opposite the huge picture window to the city below, a 120 inch screen displayed a slideshow of Trace Linder’s current concepts, previous icon designs and other icon designs the iGo execut
ive’s would be fond of emulating for one reason or another.
This slideshow played on each workstation, she noticed, passing Dan Enning’s station
Who waved weakly at her from behind his mask, eyes bloodshot; clearly just hanging on.
As she approached her designated station a loud synth tone broke the silence otherwise occupied by some of the blander works of Brian Eno that shuffled unobtrusively in the background.
A window in the corner of the huge monitor expanded and brightened into view revealing Harlan Dawes smiling at them.
“Good morning, crew. And I mean that. Welcome. Consider yourselves members of our team here at NextThing.Net as we call upon you for your input. No idea is too small, too big or too crazy to consider around here.”
A second box split off from Dawes, to show Trace Linder in his mask.
“Good Morning, gang. If you take a moment to look at your desktops you will see a link and password for a Zoom session that will start in an hour. Take some time to familiarize yourselves with the resource the workstation offers then Haran and or myself will come on to moderate discussion and listen to ideas,” Linder finished, and Harlan took advantage of the moment.
“And remember. This isn’t rocket science. You don’t even have to explain or justify a visual idea as long as it works. I want to apologize for this unorthodox setup. The Coronavirus is touching us all one way or another. I would have preferred tossing ideas back and forth across a conference table over take-out foods and industry banter. Industry banter is high underrated. A lot of great ideas are born in the midst of careless conjecture. Take advantage of Zoom. Banter is encouraged. Take out guaranteed. Ms. Kalinski has the menus of restaurants she’s decided to support that are still open for pick up an…”
