by Jamie Knight
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 si
gnaled 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 Nexthing.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.
Beth Lamden, the contest coordinator, suddenly appeared in a corner of the screen.
“Good afternoon. I’m very sorry to hear about the emergent situation’s impact on your travel plans today. The Netthing.Net offices will be closed in response, temporarily. However, the complex does maintain a number of guest rooms on the premises for the occasions that staff members pull double shifts, or the for the occasional freelancer works for us in house. I will try to find out if I can authorize accommodations for those of you who may be stuck in the city this week.”
“Are businesses shutting down due to this crisis?” Mahira asked.
“We are having people work from home until we know what’s going to happen. I am already home in Connecticut. People are self-quarantining all over the city, hoping to stay safe from contracting the virus, or potentially spreading it.”
Dan stood up and walked from his seat so that Beth could see him as he spoke.
“Are we going to be able to order food and have it delivered if we stay here?” he asked.
“Certainly. I’ve briefed security. As a matter of fact, any of you staying tonight should place a dinner order along with the security team’s order because the cafeteria staff is not on duty.”
“Thank you,” Dan said and sat back down. “If this is gonna suck, at least I want dinner.”
He folded his arms on the long table and rested his head.
Tory wondered how he could be so demanding at such a time as this. She was just glad she had somewhere to stay and someone looking out for her.
Chapter 7
Harlan Dawes gazed listlessly out over the city from the company helicopter as warm dusk light played over the city. Travel restrictions in place, Harlan’s pilot turned back from La Guardia where Harlan had planned to catch a connecting flight to Boston.
The Coronavirus was changing everything, but he wasn’t willing to let it stop him from making the deadline on the iGo account, even if it meant redesigning the app’s icon himself. The adversity almost excited him. Alone, he was free of the expectations and constraints of others. There was a liberation in solitude he always enjoyed.
The idea of a self-imposed quarantine of sorts wasn’t strange to him at all, having spent countless weeks in seclusion with his work. Not exactly a workaholic, Harlan didn’t separate lifestyle from work. The executive suite was part office, part gym and recreation center. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d spend weeks at his office, just the first time he might be practically alone.
After lightly touching down on the helipad, Harlan said goodnight to the pilot and left him to shut down and secure the small helicopter.
The emptiness of Nexthing.Net’s offices struck him as he walked the route to the elevators that usually would be crowded with people going home.
Stepping down into the sunken lounge outside his personal office, the SmartTV brightened and greeted him. He put his bag down as the phone’s tone alerted him of a call. He shot the phone in its base and the call came through on the TV’s screen.
Beth Lamden’s face came into sharp focus as she smiled at him.
“Good evening, Mr. Dawes. Sorry to hear about your plans. I have some news of similar scenarios for some of the young people we had in town this week with the contest. Some of them have been turned away by their airlines. They are in your conference room right now. I don’t know what you think about this, but I thought I’d run the idea by you.”
“Yes, Beth. Please, tell me what you’re thinking,” he said.
“Maybe we can let them stay in the guest rooms. Give them access to the rec center and food delivery. They could be here a few days.”
“Actual contest winners?”
“Yes.”
“Rec Center, huh?” Harlan asked, brows arched. “How many?”
“Just a few,” Ms. Lamden replied. “Less than a handful, Sir.”
“I guess it’s alright as long as they keep to themselves.”
“With this virus going around, that shouldn’t be difficult at all. Thank you.”
“Thank you for letting me know. I’ll be here working for the rest of the week. Feel free to call me if anything else contest related comes up. Take care of yourself. Good night.”
“Have a good night yourself, Mr. Dawes.”
After her face shrank to a tiny dot and disappeared, Harlan prompted the smart TV to mirror the security feed again.
“Conference room camera 2,” he said, as another box expanded and gave him a birds-eye view of the narrow room.
He saw Tory talking on her phone.
“Tighter,” Dawes demanded, and the camera zoomed in closer to Tory’s pretty face.
“That’s perfect.”
He wasn’t happy to see that she had been stranded, but he couldn’t help feeling glad that she was still here in the same City as he was.
Chapter 8
The tall double doors opened and a uniformed security guard in a medical grade mask entered and looked at the small group.
“Victoria Stadler,” he announced through the mask, “follow me.”
Tory waved at Mahira, who was on her phone, took up the handle to her bag and rolled it out ahead of her until she was out the doors and scurrying to catch up with the security man who was already more than ten steps ahead of her.
Inside an elevator, he passed a yellow plastic card over a sensor and made an entry on a keypad. Seeing him wave her over, Tory stepped into the elevator and rode up one level before stepping back out into an empty corridor. Walking along, she noted the swimming pool on one side and a spacious gym with a view of the city below.
At a row of doors, the security man paused. He waved an orange card over a sensor in the door and it unlocked.
Tory stepped inside and marveled for a moment at the minimally appointed room hung with huge, bright Mondrian prints on three of four walls.
“This card will give you access to the pool, the Recreation Center and cafeteria downstairs,” the man in the mask said as he put the card down on a small desk/vanity molded into the prefab wall. “The dinner order should be in the cafeteria by 7.”
He turned and walked out, leaving Tory to collapse on the bed, considering the turn of events.
***
As bright minimal music from Steve Reich and Phillip Glass played from a hidden audio system in the Cafeteria, the three contest winners sat at great distances from each other as they each peeked inside the warm bags of their dinners. Dan Ennick took his mask off and ate hungrily.
“Lincoln’s parents found him a private charter to Toronto. He’ll fly to Taiwan from there,” Mahira said loudly, as Trace Linder walked in.
Must be nice to be rich, Tory thought.
“Hello, I heard about what happened,” Trace said. “It’s awful. You�
��ll be fine here. The building is fitted with a number of different air purifying and filtration systems. There are creature comforts. Better than most hotels.”
“Why are you still here?” Maihira asked.
“As you may have heard, the design team is revamping the iGo icon. Mr. Dawes and I are both staying on to finish up the work. No wet market virus is going to slow us down at Nextthing.”
Tory paused letting a plastic fork full of brown rice fall back on her dish. Satisfied with the arrangement, for the time being, she did not anticipate being anywhere near Harlan Dawes. Despite being two tables away from Mahira, Tory could read the obvious sudden interest merely in the position of her body.
“You mean Mr. Dawes is staying here. With us?” Mahira asked, quite excitedly.
“The big dog,” Dan mumbled, with food in his mouth.
“He has his own private suite upstairs and by the way this pandemic is looking, we could be here for weeks,” Trace said.
Tory’s mind began to race as her mind immediately began to construct embarrassing scenarios that could easily play out if she didn’t wake up from the schoolgirl-like crush she had begun to develop after catching a glimpse of Harlan in person. Fear and anticipation took hold of her. She loved the idea of meeting Harlan but worried about making a fool of herself if she couldn’t keep her imagination at bay.
She knew she was not the kind of glitz girl that was usually seen on Harlan’s arm and despite the traffic stopping curves she hid on a regular basis, her virginity always made her hesitant in expressing her desires which at heart were bound in enigmatic duality. She had no practical experience in social maneuvers that let her find the freedom held in acquiescing to the intent of another.