by Jamie Knight
Since she didn’t know the name of the man who would take her virginity, in her fantasy, it was just, “Sir, sir, sir,” as she squirmed and moaned while his cock was lodged deep in her cunt, fucking her so well she wondered where he had been all her life.
In the shower in this gorgeous hotel room, Tory breathed heavily as she came one more time, hoping that soon her fantasy could come to life.
Chapter 2
The elevator door slid open silently. Harlan Dawes stepped out and put his helmet and gloves down on a narrow white buffet table nearby, unzipped his boots and took them off. This afternoon he had decided to ride the Ducati around before dinner.
The motorcycle gave him the much-needed escape from the world of monitors and sleek ergonomic furnishings of the studio. He unzipped his leather jacket and let it fall in a clump as he walked down into the sunken living room.
His 80-inch smart TV came on at his briefest insinuation. An odd-looking man spoke about tech stock futures as worldwide market symbols scrolled across the bottom of the screen. Dawes was twenty-two years old when his eccentric and beloved Uncle Kurt passed away, leaving Harlan his design magazine, Next Thing. Although Harlan had long since given up on the idea of becoming an architect, his Uncle Kurt had always supported his efforts even if Harlan was only designing websites for sneaker companies.
Sixteen years ago, when Harlan took over, it was clear to him that it was time for the small press magazine to catch up with bigger publications that transitioned to successful online presences much earlier.
When he decided to put together an in-house digital design team, it changed the business forever. Many of the marketing professionals who’d made up the magazine’s previous boutique subscribership began using Harlan’s team exclusively and recommending them internationally.
Harlan had been on the cover of Business Week at age thirty. NextThing.Net occupied the top three floors of a modern midtown building and had just landed an account that put Harlan’s team to work on revamping a popular app’s icon that had been on every iPhone’s desktop for years.
The success of recent years left him feeling challenged socially. Ideally tall, with a full head of dark hair and good bone structure, Harlan never had a problem attracting women when he was poor, but the fish in a barrel reality that wealth provided started to bore him. Certain the models, social media influencers and trust fund set were only sleeping with his status, he felt they were only women who may not necessarily have been in love with his mind.
He missed wholesome, down to earth women, like he had been known to date in high school. But his world was so different now that he wondered how he would ever find one.
Harlan worked out daily to maintain a chiseled appearance so he could be assured every woman’s compliment was at least based on something, unlike the hollow laughter and feigned enthusiasm often encountered for his personal pursuits.
Whenever he had met a woman he was attracted to, who had risen to similar status in a similar or related profession, she was as domineering and jaded as he himself felt he was. In most cases he was inspired by many of them, had hired or had been hired by some others, but it never led anywhere romantic.
An email inbox alert pinged, and Harlan sat on a sleek dark leather sofa in front of the TV so that he could examine it further.
“Open new email,” Harlan commanded his virtual assistant.
A window opened and expanded. It was the list of design contest winners, their photos and bios coming from promotions.
The sunset’s warmest hues played over the chrome and white lacquers surfaces of the surrounding furniture. Harlan stepped over to the bar and made himself drink while his smart TV read the email to him.
He may have lacked for human company and interaction these days, but at least he had technology to make his life easier.
Chapter 3
The first hours of the workshops were quite exciting. Tory learned a couple of interesting interface solutions and software hacks she couldn’t wait to try out.
As the sessions went on, she became distracted by one of the contest winners from Italy talking about the awful wave of Coronavirus deaths in Milan and other cities. Her name was Giada, and like Tory she was a junior, except that she went to school in Manhattan. She had plans to go back home to Milan and was starting to worry about it.
Another contest winner was a programmer from India named Mahira Shah.
Mahira told them about a 14-year-old Indian prodigy, Abihigya Anand, who predicted a world crippling pandemic during the previous summer.
All three young women had accommodations at the W and shared an Uber car back to the hotel after the final sessions. In the lobby they ran into Peter Pratt, the Font design winner, who was also at the W, and who joined them for dinner. The evening was cool, and together they walked along 3rd Avenue from 28th Street up to 33rd before unanimously deciding on a Sushi bar.
After dinner, Peter walked with them back to the Hotel. He had plans for the Lower West Side and rushed up to his room to change. Giada wanted to go up to her room and Skype with people overseas.
Mahira and Tory sat at the bar in the lobby and ordered cocktails. Watching people walk back and forth outside the plate glass, they talked about the spread of the disease in NYC and joked about meeting guys at the bar for one night stands. Tory was just playing along with what Mahira was saying, because she had never had a one night stand and felt she would be too nervous and scared to do so if the opportunity presented itself.
Mahira asked Tory if she’d seen Harlan Dawes in person yet.
“I don’t think so,” she said, thinking about it as Mahira scrolled through the content on her phone.
“I like these,” Mahira said, passing her the phone.
They giggled, passing back and forth publicity pics of Harlan from an interview he had given while driving a new electric sports car with a bikini-clad Estonian Supermodel getting comfortable in his lap.
“Do you think he’s playing into his image in these photos or are these photos images of him at play?” Mahira asked, then sipped her drink.
“I don’t think we’ll ever know,” Tory told her and motioned to the bartender for another round.
Up in her room, Tory drifted off to sleep with the news on, the cacophony of the city churning beyond.
She dreamed of careening along a sinuously treacherous mountain road at sundown, graded hairpin curves, and blind slopes in a silent electric sports car.
On Harlan’s lap, she opened herself to him as much as possible, his right hand squeezing the triangle of cloth between her thighs while trying to position her solidly onto the throbbing bulge in his pants.
As the road narrowed absurdly and the sun plunged into the depths of surrounding valleys, the swimsuit began to shrink, getting smaller and tighter, working its way up between her legs, shriveling to bright swatches of cloth tightening rapidly on her huge swollen nipples.
The sports car seemed to hit a barrier or membrane of darkness, slowing it and everything else down as her orgasm expanded around her like fireworks at speed of ripples spreading in a pond. She woke up breathless, damp and still a little drunk.
She laughed a bit, flipped her pillow over to the cool dry side and went back to sleep until she finally had to wake up and get ready for the day.
***
NextThing.Net had a small auditorium, modern and modular, with clear nods to Deco or perhaps Bauhaus in the detail. Comfortable in a dark pantsuit, hair pulled away from her face in a neat French braid and her dark rimmed glasses, Tory gave her presentation as confidently as possible, hoping that no one noticed her almost caution pronunciation of multisyllabic words and exotic jargon.
Knowing that Harlan was somewhere in the darkened audience of CEOs, designers and press people distracted her with random flashes of her dream, mixed in with the look of erotic surrender on the supermodel’s face in the interview photos. She felt her delivery came off as somewhat spaced, but she couldn’t care less, since the prize h
ad already been won and the day's presentation was merely a formality for NextThing.Net and the media.
Before going back to the Hotel to change for dinner and the awards ceremony, Tory went back into the modern auditorium when it was empty to take some pictures of it like that. Upon hearing voices, she was immediately silent. Harlan was speaking to a black clothing-clad assistant, with a sleek Bluetooth unit twinkling in her ear. She read something to him from a tablet while speaking to someone else.
Harlan looked like he hadn’t shaved in a week, but he was still so sexy. He wore a slim fitting dark blazer, but all other staples of business dress were absent. Under the dark jacket he wore a clingy black microfiber shirt and slim casual pants over dark laceless high tops.
Tory told herself to look away, although he was a very handsome vision to behold indeed. She absent-mindedly snapped a few images of the architecture while admiring the clear lines of his musculature, accentuated by the slim athletic fit of his clothes. Hoping not to be seen, she quietly backed out of the door, watching Harlan give orders to his assistant, who was pretty enough to be a model herself.
She wondered if he had seen her and if he was as interested in her as she was in him. But then she told herself not to be silly, and hurried up to get ready, her heart pounding and her panties damp.
Chapter 4
There was an insistent knock at Tory’s door. Mahira came in as Tory opened it, wearing a slim low-cut dress of a semi metallic fabric that caught light and refracted it. She ended the call they had been on moments earlier before completely turning around. Tory stepped closer to her to zip up the shimmery fabric then turned away herself so that Mahira could zip up her much less dramatic black dress.
“Doesn’t look like you go out much,” Mahira said, smiling at Tory, “You won’t make an entrance at the ball in that.”
Tory laughed at her.
“I’m not clearly on a manhunt,” she said, cleaning her glasses.
“Right. You have a hometown hunk, don’t you?” Mahira teased.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Tory said, not wanting to admit how very inexperienced she actually was.
“Trouble?”
“No, not really. I had one boyfriend, but we broke up due to an immaturity issue, I guess.” Tory confided in her new friend. “Whenever we would go out somewhere and I was dressed up, like really hot, he’d turn into like a weird robot-he-man bodyguard. He’d stand around shooting steely glances at every other guy around and make sure to take me by the hips and pull me close to let everyone know I was spoken for.”
“I think you can do better than that,” Mahira said, as her phone vibrated to let her know their Uber car was approaching.
“I agree,” Tory told her. “That’s why he’s my ex.”
But sadly, I haven’t been able to find anyone else since, she thought, but didn’t add aloud.
***
The dinner had been exceptionally quiet, as almost everyone looked at their phones for updates on the Coronavirus situation as it had been upgraded to pandemic status and travel bans were being put in place.
The fanfare and media coverage buoyed most people’s spirits as the awards were presented.
After Giada received her award and said her thank yous, she paused and looked out over the group in dire consideration before swiftly walking off the stage. In the roar of the applause, Tory watched her go back to her seat, put on her coat, and walk away, pulling a small bag behind her.
When her name was called, Tory rose and proceeded towards the stage, realizing for the first time that Harlan was nowhere in sight. His pretty assistant wearing black, who had been introduced to them by the MC as Ms. Kalinski, was in his seat at the head of the panel, conversing via Bluetooth with someone unseen.
Tory felt her heart sink, but she once again told herself not to be silly. There was no reason to think that Harlan should be here, and especially not that he would be paying any attention to her, even though she was always looking around for him.
Chapter 5
Trace Linder led Harlan’s digital design team, not because of position or seniority but by default as the most requested designer. This had been the case with the big iGo Icon commission.
Two Chinese members of his staff had taken a leave of absence to self-quarantine somewhere in Canada. Others were concerned as the COVID 19 cases were springing up in New York City at an alarming rate.
Looking at his face at four times its size in a corner of the 80 inch, Harlan could see he was concerned. Trace, it seemed, had hit a wall in the project and couldn’t find the essence of the change he wanted to make in the iGo Icon. Clearly, the stresses faced by the absence of part of the team and the crisis itself, during a crucial week played some part.
Still handling the crisis, Harlan felt somewhat remiss in not attending the award ceremony earlier, yet he had almost welcomed having an excuse to work on it personally during the evening. If the city was going to close up, he could fly out in the morning with a ProBook and work from a great coffee shop in rural New England.
He summoned the elevator while slipping into cross trainers. About to hop up the few steps out of the sunken lounge, Harlan paused in thought, recalling something then stood before the large TV again. He called up the security footage from the previous evening in the auditorium.
Smiling, he watched as Tory snapped pictures of the auditorium’s architecture, then dashed up the stairs to catch the elevator. She was simply stunning, and he wished he could get to know her better – in the carnal sense, of course – but he knew that would be inappropriate.
He went down the Recreation Center above the studios and office space, passing the swimming pool and entering the gym. Exercise usually helped clear his head and channel his stress. Harlan worked out with weights for twenty minutes, then spent another forty running on an elliptical machine while watching the news before sitting down to his work.
After an hour of studying the variations Trace had explored, Harlan stood up and stretched. The stretch begat a yawn. Once again, he called upon the smart TV to bring up the security footage of Tory in the Auditorium. Harlan told the TV to pause the frame as she held up her phone to take a picture.
“I think she likes it,” he remarked to the TV.
The distinct audio dead space that preceded the AI’s response extended beyond its typical span as if it had no idea what to say to that.
Chapter 6
After getting off the phone with her mother, Tory sat down glumly on her bed at the W. News of the Pandemic was everywhere. Her mother wanted her home immediately.
The scope of the outbreak in New York horrified her. Having just spent two days amongst New Yorkers worried Tory as well. The idea of bringing the virus home to her parents and grandmother sprang at her intermittently as she considered her options.
Browsing for travel through the night, she found that so many flights and trains were booked, as people were leaving the city in fear. Sirens could be heard in the distance as she tossed and turned then watched the news, alternately, throughout the night.
At check-out, she was numb with the anticlimactic turn of events. On the street getting into the Uber car to carry her to the AirTrain, Toby saw the first swaths of people on the street wearing masks over their noses and mouths, making the reality of the pandemic start to seem frightening and apocalyptic. When she noticed that the Uber driver had on a mask and gloves, she wondered what she’d face at the airport.
As she began to review the more positive moments of the past few days in her mind, the driver turned up the news so loud it was obvious that he meant for her to hear it before speaking. The broadcast reiterated the reports of travel restrictions and flight cancelations affecting people leaving the city.
“You want me to take you back to the hotel?” he asked.
“I don’t think that will work. I’ve just checked out,” Tory said, becoming anxious.
She wanted to call Wisconsin and let her parents know what happened. Flashing on the idea
that she may not have been the only contest winner stuck in the city, Tory told the driver the address for NextThing.Net as he pulled off the expressway onto a service road to turn back towards Manhattan.
She called ahead but couldn’t get through. She left a message with the contest’s coordinator, then called home. After carefully weighing the current options, Tory’s mother told her to call the airline to find out if they were offering accommodations until the next flight out, when a beeping signaled another incoming call.
It was the contest coordinator from NextThing.Net, letting her know that a few others from the contest were stuck in the city as well and that she could join them in the design studio’s conference room as they negotiated alternate routes. Calmer inside the clean sleek lobby of the building, Tory was met by a security team member who escorted her to the elevators that would take her back up inside NextThing.Net’s suite of offices.
In the long conference room, Mahira rose to hug Tory as Tory looked to the others: Dan Ennick, a Cinema 4D wizard from Seattle and Lincoln Zhou, a web designer from Taiwan. Mindful of the Coronavirus and its transmission, both young women suddenly stepped back from each other with a nervous grin.
“I’ve been trying to get through to both the airline and the airport with equal luck,” Mahira said looking at Tory’s face. “Meaning, none at all. Lincoln says his airline will put him up in Queens. Did you make it to the airport?
“No. I am going to try calling. I’ll look on the web to see if they’ve put up any updates,” Tory said, trying to muster up enthusiasm for troubleshooting the situation when a tone sounded in sync with the flashing light of the monitor on the wall above the conference room table.