Finding neither guidance nor resistance, Brad slid his hand beneath her briefs. He proceeded to do his best to attempt to provide her with some pre-coital pleasure, but he was fairly sure his clumsy lack of know-how was both readily apparent and less than entirely enjoyable.

Not wanting to actually injure any of her delicate parts, Brad gave up after the most cursory of finger play. He pushed at her underwear, finding it even more difficult to remove than her jeans had been. The panties eventually halted mid-thigh, as frustration and urgency forced him to abandon the project.

His boxer shorts went down at a diagonal. The left side made it all
the way down to join his slacks at his knees, while the right side ended up at his own mid-thigh.

There was now nothing at all between them in this narrow sexual band. Brad began poking at her again, felt himself actually reach somewhere that felt moist and seemed appropriate. In fact, Brad was almost certain he’d actually hit the mark.

Strangely, this brought the first active response from Liz of the entire encounter, as she raised herself up briefly, reached beneath, and pointed him in a new direction – back a bit. Apparently, she had her own contingency, as far as pregnancy avoidance went.

This change, while unexpected, suited Brad fine. Any port in a storm.

After months of masturbation, the sensation of actual intercourse was as overwhelming as a heroin rush to a toddler. Brad grunted, “Ondigo!” and ejaculated.

The process, from insertion to completion, took a little under ten seconds.

Brad fell back, then arched forward again when the leg cramp got serious. While his physical state was ebbing, he remained ensconced within Liz for the moment, and he had to make an attempt at being gentle
as he threw her to the side and jumped up, slimily, from the couch.

He really hoped nobody could see through Liz’s blinds. He imagined he struck quite an image at the moment.

“Leg cramp!” Brad said, by way of explanation.

Liz looked odd, a mixture of mild disappointment, extreme arousal, and surprise. She wasn’t terribly expressive, though, even in this moment of duress. Brad figured she’d make an excellent poker player, at least as far as having a poker face went.

“I, uh … Are you okay?” she asked. Brad was leaning forward on the leg, his dangly parts woefully uncovered. He wished he had a towel.

“Yeah, it came sorta sudden,” Brad said. “Kinda ended things suddenly.” Blaming the cramp for his rapid performance seemed better than saying, “Man, do I suck in bed. Or on the couch. Wherever. I’m just laughably bad at sex.”

He then added, “But I’m okay. Do you, like, want me to grab some towels?” Being highly unfond of being sticky, he knew he needed one, and assumed she might like one, as well.

The room smelled a bit ripe, too. It smelled like ass. Brad hoped that was due to what they’d done, rather than being due, say, to the sweat that had trickled down his own back crack.

At the very least, he hoped that Liz thought it was a smell of her own origination. He didn’t want her first postcoital memory of him to be dominated by the realization that he was giving off a powerful outhouse aroma.

“I have some hand towels in the bathroom,” Liz said. She pointed over her right shoulder, and seemed to be regaining her composure. She pulled her shirt shut, but made no move to button it.

Brad scuttled in the indicated direction, knowing that nudity was not his best “look.”

The towels were easy to find, and having wrapped one around his sticky bits, he was able to pull his boxer shorts back up. He also managed a quick swipe at the crack with some toilet paper, dropping it in and flushing it before walking back with a bit more confidence, although he did make a judgment call and pulled his slacks all the way off.

They’d had sex. That meant he now had the right to walk around in his boxers if he found that more comfortable.

He handed her the other towel and then collapsed on the couch next to her. It was wet in patches, something he decided he’d rather not think about.

She shoved the towel into her rear, which was not the sexiest thing he’d ever seen a woman do, then kicked her jeans and panties to the floor before snuggling back up to him. Apparently, this hadn’t been some one-time thing, never to be spoken of. They were now on cuddling terms, at a bare minimum.

Brad settled in, one arm wrapped around her, ready to see if the Mackenzie family could win Fast Money. He guessed he wouldn’t have to sleep on the couch after all. Pleasant news, coming on the heels of the best night in recent memory.

Plus, maybe they’d diddle again after going to bed – and maybe he could break the ten-second mark if they did. He’d be sure and bring some towels to bed, just in case. Better safe than sticky.

–––––

Brad would’ve called in sick, but it was Friday, and anyhow, he needed to get away from Liz so he could jerk off. Sex was great, but it didn’t obviate his need for “Brad time.”

Plus, there was the chance that she was now his girlfriend, in which case he didn’t want her thinking badly of him. He was fairly certain she’d frown upon the practice of calling in sick when your only malady was being sick of going to work.

He wasn’t sure he wanted to hang out in the apartment all by
himself, either – his or hers.

Civilization had just locked up, so he’d been forced to restart his machine. A fresh cigarette fed him nicotine, and he felt unhealthfully good … aside from the heart murmur, which hadn’t really gone away yet, oddly enough.

Not only had Liz not sworn him to secrecy with the arrival of morning, but she’d actually been rather on the chipper side. Cooked him breakfast. Smiled. It was an odd change of pace.

The piles of crap that littered his office had taken on a more cheerful glow. When he leaned to the side to release a greasy fart, it was a happy greasy fart – a cheerful bit of pungent joy, thickening the air with glad tidings.

He hadn’t even felt like tapping his pharmacopoeia as normal this morning. (The fact that he hadn’t had a chance to stop by his own apartment and restock surely had nothing to do with that.)

He was high on life. Nancy Reagan would be proud. Aside from the anal sex, anyway.

Brad leaned back in his chair, like a bull walrus visiting the dentist, and blew smoke at the tattered ceiling tiles. He began to wonder what other sexual escapades were in store for him tonight, once they arrived at Liz’s apartment.

This brought a momentary twinge of unease, one that had been growing all morning: Would the fact that she was, basically, fairly unattractive
eventually mean he would have a hard time finding sexual release in her bony abyss? Would he, at some point in the near future, find himself flaccid when faced with the prospect of sex with Liz?

Attempting intimacy with a fallen soldier never impressed the ladies. As a man with many, many faults, Brad knew that this one had to be avoided. A shame, really, that his stash of meds didn’t include any for erectile dysfunction.

“Just have to hump that bridge when I get to it,” Brad said, puffing some more on his cigarette and lazily swiveling his chair from side to side as he continued to stare up at the ceiling.

The tiles were the cardboard-like acoustic tiles popular in so many institutional buildings. He wondered whether they backed up against a solid surface or if it was a drop ceiling.

He sort of wanted to take a look – he always felt like every drop ceiling he sat beneath was a potential hiding place … and that, eventually, if he peered into enough of them, he’d find something cool some other poor bastard had hidden and forgotten about. Drugs, maybe. Or porn. Heck, could be booze or a gun, or even cash. You never knew. But it was bound to be fun, whatever it was.

Brad got up and climbed onto his gimp desk, using his feet to kick enough paperwork out of the way to create spots for his shoes so he could stand. He wobbled a bit as he stood there, but the desk gave him enough height to push against one of the ceiling tiles. It resisted him, but after he shoved a bit, and tore off some chunks at the corners on one side, the tile moved up out of his way.

Dust and ceiling tile fell down in a brief rain, coating him and getting in his eyes. Brad came up with a few choice words, rubbing at his eyes with the crook of one arm.

Once partial vision had been restored, he peered into the void between the ceiling tile and the true ceiling of the office. There was plenty of dust, and various conduits of unknown purpose, but nothing remotely resembling treasure of any sort. Brad swore some more, and wedged the ceiling tile back in place badly, breaking off more of it in the process.

He hopped down from the desk, a graceless motion that left him with a sharp twinge of pain in his left ankle. Making a face, he collapsed back into his chair and attempted to reach the ankle so he could rub it down a bit.

He couldn’t reach. The ankle remained tantalizingly beyond his grasp, separated from his questing arms by the enormity of his belly, and by a basic refusal on the part of his body to accommodate him with any sort of flexion throughout his torso or legs. He felt like the Tin Man from Wizard of Oz, only way, way, way fatter. Maybe like the Tin Man in a whale suit.

He gave up and felt sorry for himself for a while.

A knock came at the door. Brad gave a little hiccup, strangely enough, and glanced guiltily at the portal to his office. He wasn’t sure what he was guilty about, but given time, he was certain he could think of something.

He managed to squawk, “It’s open,” a moment before the knob turned and the door flew open. Faye stood there, looking at him with the vague appearance of bemused disappointment she took on so often when she saw him.

He glared back, unsure of what attitude to take. The day was, on the whole, still a good one. But it was seldom good when your supervisor decided to take a personal interest in your existence. What the hell was wrong with her, anyhow? Didn’t she know it was Friday?

“You’re on the phones today,” she said, like it was the sort of thing you could just say like that, and in so doing, make it so.

Brad felt his jaw begin to drop, although he arrested the process before it could progress far enough to actually pull his mouth open. His eyes grew a bit wider, and he found himself unable to come up with a witty response. “Huh?” was the best he could manage.

“It’ll be a slow day. Marion is going to train you,” Faye said. In so doing, she squelched the first true protest he’d been about to voice: “I haven’t been trained yet!”

She was diabolical. Clearly, she’d thought of everything.

Brad hunched in on himself, determined not to break down crying in front of this woman who toyed with his fate on a whim. He had only one question left at this point. “When?”

“She needs her break at 10, so you need to go up there by 9:30,” Faye said. “You’ll be giving her all her breaks, and spending most of the day up there. At least until Marion says you’re trained, at which point it’ll become your day to be on the phones. Marion has to leave early today, and the pool is short.”

Brad felt like a little piece of his body had just been carved off and tossed into his grave. Perhaps his left foot. Or maybe a testicle.

Sort of like peak oil production, he’d always known this day would come, yet somehow sort of hoped it magically wouldn’t. He’d been sentenced to join the phone rotation, and from this day forward, the phones would always loom over his days as a potential punishment for his sins.

The day had grown sinister in a shocking manner. Brad figured this was what it would feel like to fart blood.

Faye left, her machinations complete. Brad turned to his computer in a sulk and glanced at the time. He had less than ten minutes to join Marion at the phones – just enough time to hot-box two cigarettes and choke back some tears.

Brad adjusted his music, put on Portishead. As a band, they did a good job summing up the melancholy solitude he was feeling. He tried to find solace in memories of Liz, but at the moment those mostly seemed dirty and fleeting, like scrambled porn.

His eyes began to water. He pulled hard at his cigarette, gouging his face into the crook of his arm to get rid of any wetness, and rubbing hard at his eyes while he was at it. If they were going to be red, it’d be best if they appeared bloodshot. Even whales had their pride. He would not be shown to cry in front of his coworkers.

Like summer vacation, the ten minutes ended quickly and in a blur. He gathered up a book so he’d have something to amuse himself with if the opportunity arose and shambled for the door.

Shoulders hunched, he pulled it open. Nobody was in the hall to see his march of shame. He moved at a reluctant pace, headed inescapably toward the front desk.

There weren’t many sights along the way. A bookcase stacked high with planning manuals he had never seen anyone open during his time in the office. Closed doors belonging to offices empty over the holiday week. Industrial carpet with its knack for always looking threadbare and dirty, even when new. Fluorescent lights with their life-giving glare and high-voltage hum.

Marion saw him as he rounded the corner, and their eyes briefly met. Brad couldn’t tell if she was still angry, but she definitely didn’t seem particularly warm and fuzzy. If anything, their shared microsecond glance seemed to indicate cool professionalism, that most boring of detached emotions.

Today was going to be all work and no play. Brad felt the dull boy.

“So, uh, guess I’m learning the phones?” Brad offered, by way of apology.

“Not much to learn,” Marion said. “When it rings, you’ll see the line flashing where the call is incoming. You push the button, which engages the line. Say hello, find out who they need to talk to, then push the hold button. Then you just push the transfer button, and the button for the extension they need, and the call is transferred.

“You can also push the extension button while you’re talking to them, and it’ll instantly transfer. If they’re not in, tell the caller, and offer to let them go to voice mail. For that, you just push the voice mail button, followed by their extension.”

Brad regarded the phone solemnly. There were a lot of buttons.

“How do I know which extension?” Perhaps, if he could find some insoluble obstacle to his ability to answer the phones, he could still bow out, begging stupidity, although he sort of doubted it.

“The extension list is right here, by the phone,” Marion said. “If you want, you can screen calls. Just push the extension button without hitting transfer, after you put the call on hold. Then you can ask whoever is at that extension if they’re available. It’s a hassle, but some people get cranky if you don’t do it.”

“This doesn’t sound like much fun,” Brad said.