by Adira August
FRIENDS AND NOT SO FRIENDS
“And THAT’S game!” Avia shouted, smashing the blue racquetball into the right corner while Carson Sanchez was on her right. It shot left and hit the floor before he covered half the distance to it, bounced off the wall and hit the floor again.
Carson bent over, hands on knees, panting, and gave her a big grin.
“Hey, we’re getting good at this,” he said, catching the towel Avia tossed him, to wipe the sweat dripping down his face, neck and arms.
“You’re watering the floor,” Avia said, as they left the racquetball court for the locker rooms. He grabbed her in a sideways hug to rub his sweat-soaked armpit against her.
“EW, ew, disgusting.” She shoved him away, swinging her racket at his head.
“You know you want it, Baby,” he waggled his brows and leered as he pushed into the men’s locker room.
Carson was Avia’s first friend at The Week and had become one of her closest friends in the four years she’d been there. J.J. called him “WebMaster” emphasizing master and giving him a little bow. His title was something long and incomprehensible to Avia, but he was the Master of the publication. Nothing happened without him. Carson finally insisted they hire him an assistant he could train so he could “take a damned vacation day once in a while.”
Avia and Carson played racquetball three times a week before work. It was Avia’s whole fitness routine except for the yoga she did each morning on rising. But she thought of the yoga as keeping her sane, more than fit.
She'd discovered it in college when, to avoid becoming sweaty in the middle of the day with no time to shower, she took pistol shooting for her phys ed requirement. Surprised to find she was a natural and loved it, she joined the pistol team. When she happened to take a yoga class the morning of a competition, she found it enhanced her performance.
After college, she'd kept up her yoga but given up shooting. Now, being in a job that required her to sit for hours every day, she was in desperate need of exercise. Racquetball worked for her because she got a cardio workout, it kept her muscles toned and let her take out her frustrations on a rubber ball.
She loved Carson as a partner because he didn’t care much who won. It was about exercise for them both and the goal was to keep the ball in play as long as possible within the rules. They’d learned together, whacked each other on various parts of their bodies with the racquets as they did. And celebrated the first time they had a thirty-minute game.
Avia dressed after a quick shower and ran a comb through her hair that would air dry quite nicely during the three-block walk to the office. She had the thought that she and Carson were companions, in the best sense of that word.
Maybe he means it in the best way, too, she thought as she finished dressing. Even in her thoughts, Ben Hart was “he.” She didn’t want to use his name. She didn’t know why and didn’t want to examine her resistance too closely. She had far too much to think about already.
“I’m telling you, if we increase the strength of the metal, we’ll lose plasticity. I’m sorry, Mr. Hart, that’s physics.”
Ben Hart controlled the urge to slam the receiver over and over on the nearest hard surface in hope of getting his junior engineer’s attention. He took a slow breath, instead.
“And I’m telling you it’s already been done and the plasticity increased. Go check the last issue of Science. Then, see if there’s a source for an industrial quantity or if the government already locked it down. If they did, get Golriche in D.C. on the phone and have him figure out how we get around it. Report back to me by three o’clock.”
He clicked off. It was often difficult to deal with his engineering staff because they assumed a rich guy with a degree in business had to be pretty much a dunce in their field. Which is why he usually worked directly with Nick and his team.
But his younger brother was on paternity leave and Ben didn’t want to step in and start giving orders to his personal team. So he was stuck talking to whatever junior engineer had been assigned to answer the phone.
His desk phone buzzed. “Hart. … yeah … yeah … I’ve got it.” He clicked off. The meeting with Irene Mackin’s attorney was confirmed for four o’clock in the Hart Development main conference room.
Leaving his real office, in the Keep across the hall from Hugo’s, he crossed in front of the elevator to his right hand man’s door.
“Mackin’s confirmed for this afternoon,” he told Hugo. “I have the thumb drive set up. You’ll be clear?”
Hugo nodded. “Helicopter will be standing by from two-thirty. I still wish you wouldn’t take that material out of the Keep.”
“I appreciate you looking out for me, Hugo. But I’m not having her back here, ever. I want this ugly shit behind us.” He checked his watch. “I’ll be off-property at a breakfast meeting. You have a videoconference with the list authors set for eleven?”
“I do, all three billionaire writers are on board. George isn’t too happy about the early hour.”
Ben grinned. “It’s the price he pays for living in paradise.”
Hugo frowned at his monitor. “I don’t see the breakfast meeting on your schedule.”
“It’s personal,” Ben told him. “And I don’t think the issue will take that long with the writers, see if we can fit in going over the cover art for the November releases at the same time.”
Hugo nodded. “Anything else?”
“I sent a restock list to the warehouse. It should be waiting at the lift in an hour.”
“I’ll see it’s left by the door,” Hugo assured him, meaning outside the door to the Companion’s Room.
Ben nodded. “Oh, and I’m expecting a few deliveries. Put them with the restock.”
Ben tapped the doorway a few times with his fingers, making he sure he didn’t forget anything. Nope. Done. With a wave he was gone, stepping out and onto the elevator, looking forward to his morning meeting.
Hugo turned to his tasks with satisfaction. If the boss was restocking the Companion’s Room, it meant he finally found someone new. And that could only be the laughing Ms. Rivers, no other woman had been in the Keep for four long months. Good, he thought. He’d liked her. And Ben deserved a bit of laughter in his life.
“You were in the zone, today.” Carson was waiting for Avia outside the locker room. His sleek black hair still damp. His eyes were black, too, or so dark they seemed it, but somehow always full of light and humor. He was only an inch or two taller than Avia, slender and graceful. A lovely man.
They exited into the cool bright morning. “What is that, anyway?” She asked.
“Being in the zone?”
“Yeah. Why is it the only time I can make all the shots, somehow always be in the exact spot to get to the ball, connect perfectly, is when I’m not thinking about it? Like my body just does it. On autopilot. How the hell does that work?” She wondered.
“It’s that Zen thing,” he said as they crossed an intersection diagonally. “If you’re really interested, there’s a book by a guy whose name I’ll never pronounce about the psychology of optimal experience.”
“Optimal experience? About sports?”
“About everything,” he said. “You’d probably find it pretty interesting. And there’re a ton of other books about Zen and sports. Being in the zone. The ‘flow’ as the optimal experience guy calls it.”
“I wish I had time to look into that, but right now I have a whole other thing to research.” She said as they entered the building.
“Going after more graft and corruption?”
“Sex,” she said. “I’m doing a piece on women’s erotica.”
They stopped at the coffee cart in the lobby, where Dennis, the “coffee cart guy,” was already filling a large cup halfway with hot chocolate he’d top off with coffee for Avia.
“Oh, well, then you definitely want to look into optimal experience. There’s a ton of stuff on the Zen of sex.” He said.
She sighed. “You got anything on the Zen of spanking
and humiliation? The enhancement of arousal through bondage?”
They took their coffee and crossed the lobby to the elevator bay. “Sure, what do you want to know?” He asked.
She rolled her eyes at him. “I’m serious, I need to figure some of this out for my readers.”
“I’m serious, too, Avia. That stuff is just par for the course in my world,” he said.
They entered the elevator with a few other morning arrivals. Headed for the top floor, they moved back to a corner away from the door.
“You think it’s the same for men and men as for women and men?” She asked quietly, under the piped-in morning radio show.
He shrugged. “I don’t know, could depend on what you’re trying to figure out.”
She was quiet for the rest of the ride. What are you trying to figure out? … Hell if I know. What she’d experienced yesterday left her exhilarated and confused, anxious and eager for more. She’d sent him her list of available times as soon as she got home. She’d checked her email twice this morning looking for a reply. It wasn’t even eight-thirty.
Then there was the assignment which made her curious and sometimes uncomfortable. Avia realized she was in danger of not being able to separate her personal and professional interests.
They exited the elevator for the bullpen, off of which Carson had a bigger office than J.J.’s, though without a window. Avia’s bullpen desk was one of many, but she’d always liked being right in the thick of the energy of a dozen people in a big, bright room. Right that minute, however, she’d rather have Carson’s privacy.
Just as they were to part for their different spaces, she put a hand on his arm.
“Listen. I have this phone interview and then some research to catch up on. Can I squat in your office while I do it? I don’t want to deal with Spider leering over my shoulder.”
Stew “Spider” Dwyer, tall, exceptionally thin social media reporter, sat behind Avia. When he started, he’d lean over her shoulder as if curious about her story. Mostly he was looking down her blouse. The second time she had to tell him to back off, she made it clear that if there was a third time, he’d be in HR discussing his boundary issues.
He did back off, but often made lewd comments just loud enough for her to hear when he was on the phone. Or pretending to be. The last thing she needed was him seeing an article on “sexual spanking” over her shoulder.
“Mi casa, Avia. Come in whenever you’re ready.” Carson told her.
“Thanks, you’re the best.” Avia said.
“True,” he agreed before disappearing into his office.
Irene Mackin stood before the huge, highly-polished mirror in the women’s room on the top floor of the exclusive office building where the posh offices of the law firm of Lichtenstein, Carter, Evers and Randall were housed.
She gathered her long black hair up in a comb and smoothed down her silk-lined pencil skirt. She was going to need that silk lining later. She checked her watch. Eight-fifteen. Good. She was fifteen minutes late. There was little Leonard Randall hated more than tardiness. Unless it was disobedience.
She carefully applied a layer of bright red lipstick. Nice effect with her raven hair and pale skin, the red blouse and black skirt and her fuck-me spike heels. Black, but the soles were red. She unbuttoned one more button, to display her cleavage.
It was time.
A few steps down the deeply carpeted hall brought her to the open reception area. She knew the partners rarely came in before ten and the receptionist would be the only one anywhere near the west side of the building where the partner offices were located. The associates and assistants worked on the east side, and they’d been here since seven. At the latest.
Irene was sure she and her attorney would have a whole side of a floor to themselves.
A rather timid but very efficient Ms. Cattermole, receptionist, looked up as she approached the desk.
“Ms. Makin. He’s been expecting you!” she breathed, accusation and shock mingling in her tone. “Go right back.”
Irene nodded and sauntered down the inner hall, stepped through an open oak door, past an empty secretary’s desk to the also open door of her attorney’s office.
Leonard Lawrence Randall was at his desk, fingers drumming, reading something closely written on long paper. He was a thick man of fifty, his hair “tinted” a light brown, receding sharply from his forehead. He wore contacts instead of glasses in an effort to look younger. But he’d never grown used to him and they made him blink, so he looked nervous, instead of masterful.
And Leonard Randall did so like being thought of as masterful. Irene posed in the doorway, head down, hands clutching her purse in front of her.
“Mr. Randall?” She said in a breathy, timid voice.
His head jerked up. He leaned over his desk, weight resting on his meaty fists.
“How dare you keep me waiting?” He snarled.
Trotting around the car, Ben retrieved the insulated “picnic basket” from the passenger seat. He bounded up a flagged stone walk and the stone stairs that led to the huge screened-in porch of an old Victorian mansion. Dropped the lion’s head brass knocker three times.
The door swung open and Professor Xavier Freeman Gideon eyed the insulated carrier with suspicion. “Giddy” as most called him, was a six-foot three inch, great, carved column of a man. His stature, dignity, dark satin skin and short, iron gray afro always made Ben think of a king of some ancient African kingdom. Especially when he was scowling, as he was now.
“A billionaire says he’ll buy me breakfast. I put on a suit with vest and a Windsor knotted tie and you bring me pre-cooked food in an insulated backpack?” Giddy blocked the doorway.
“You look very handsome. Are you going to make me stand on your porch or invite me in?” Ben asked.
“Depends whether or not you convince me that what you have in your bag is worth the effort I put into dressing.”
“Berthe cooked it; Berthe packed it,” was all Ben replied.
“Oh.” The door swung wide open and the Professor made a sweeping gesture of welcome.
DISCOVERY
“What the hell is that?” Carson asked looking over Avia’s shoulder at the image her screen. She’d set up her laptop on a small conference table in his office they sometimes ate lunch at together when the weather was bad.
She blinked a few times at the thing that sort of looked like a bird in flight carrying two water balloons that Wikipedia assured her was a diagram of her clitoris. She agreed with Carson: What the fuck? How can that be?
Ben’s words came back to her.
“You expressed some contempt a while ago at men who thought they knew more about a woman’s orgasm than the woman. Well, I do. Why don’t you know?”
Yeah, why didn’t I know? She asked herself.
“So, guy stuff and girl stuff are all made of the same stuff?” Carson asked, referring to the section on screen that explained the same fetal tissue formed both male and female genitalia.
“Apparently,” she said, trying to read the article herself.
“Erectile tissue, it says. You get a hard-on?” He seemed as amused as surprised. Avia ignored him. “What the hell?” He went on. “You have 8000 nerve endings in your itty-bitty button and I only get 4000 in my whole knob?” He glanced at her. “You look like an overripe tomato. Don’t have a stroke, okay?”
Avia was bright red. But at least it was Carson and not the slimy Spider. Still -
“Carson, I came in here to keep a guy from reading over my shoulder,” she complained.
“Yeah, yeah. Hey, look up penis, I want to make sure I’m not a giant mutant squid inside or something.”
“GO! Go to your own desk and look it up, yourself.” She ordered him. “I need to get this done.” She half-closed her laptop. “Shoo! Git!”
“You know why looking at sexual anatomy makes you cranky?” He asked, retreating to his desk. “Because you haven’t used yours in so long.”
Avia threw
her pen at him. He caught it in mid-air. “Game!” he said. Then, to Avia’s relief, Carson pivoted away from her to focus on his own monitor.
She took out her notebook, jotted down the points from the Wikipedia article and several others she’d accessed that she needed to follow up on with ... with whom? She wondered. There were two Universities and a medical school in town, she imagined one of them would have someone she could talk to. She added that to her to-do list.
She also downloaded a series of different depictions of the female clitoris. That “itty-bitty button” Carson referred to that she always thought was her clitoris, was only a small visible portion of the whole. It perched on the end of a stalk that entered the body. That stalk split into two wings that ran along the sides of the vulva. And, in several depictions, extended to and around the vagina.
But some of the illustrations had the clitoral wings stopping fairly short. It seemed the size and extent of a woman’s clitoris varied from individual to individual.
Datamining, he’d called it. That’s what he was doing, literally gathering data. Figuring out how I’m built inside from my reaction to what he did to the outside of me.
She wrenched her concentration back to the screen.
The whole clitoral structure was formed of erectile tissue, that swelled during arousal. But that wasn’t all. There were two “bulbs,” that she’d thought of as water balloons, nested under the wings on either side and behind her labia. Also erectile tissue, that would become engorged and swell. It was exactly the same erectile tissue as in a man’s penis.
That’s how he gave me that orgasm, she thought, focused on the stalk that ferried all those nerve fibers to her glans, the “head” of her clitoris. Somehow, without touching her clit - she’d always called it her clit she wasn’t going to stop now - he’d gotten two fingertips on either side and - just say it, Avia - he’d jacked her off.
Avia’s mind was about to take a wholly unprofessional side path when her cell vibrated on the tabletop. It was him.