Chapter 5: The Subtle Intimation - August 31, 2020

When Amy arrives at work on Monday mornings she immediately opens her email and calendar to see what is brewing for the week. This week she had just clicked on the appropriate icon when Deedee arrives at her desk, plops her laptop onto the dock, and hits the power button. Without asking, Amy locks her computer and the two friends head down the hall for a cup of coffee.

“How did the trip back home go?” asks Amy. “Did you find ‘roid-man again?”

“Fuck no, I don’t need a pencil dick that’s not going to at least use his tongue or finger to get me off.”

Amy smiled at how much Deedee’s language had evolved into a definitely not-safe-for-work tone when they were alone together in the building.

“How about you? Find anything you liked over the weekend?”

Amy ruefully shook her head. “No, it was a very quiet weekend. I didn’t feel very good Friday night and ended up staying in all day Saturday. Didn’t even get out of my sweat pants and hoodie.”

“Damn, girl, that bad?”

The two get to the coffee maker and find it close to empty, but still turned on, with the last remains sending an aroma of burning Folgers throughout the break room.

“Fucking idiots,” starts Deedee. “Bad enough to not start a fresh pot, but to leave it on and stink up the place?”

Amy takes the basket with grounds out of the pot as Deedee empties and rinses the carafe. By the time Amy has fresh grounds in a filter and back in the machine Deedee has filled it with water and they kick off a fresh pot.

“They may be inconsiderate assholes, but at least we’re getting a fresh pot,” rationalizes Amy.

The two alternate between planning for their upcoming weekend and discussing the hot-topic work issues that were not resolved at the end of the previous week. When the coffee finishes brewing both fill their large thermoses with coffee, leaving less than two cups left in the carafe. Amy clicks the machine to “off” so the next caffeine seeker won’t be faced with the same burnt carafe.

Back at their desks Amy and Deedee both see the email at the same time.

“What the fuck,” says Deedee as she looks over to Amy.

“I don’t know? Me, you, and Erin going to lunch today?”

They don’t know what to make of the unexpected, and sudden, invitation to lunch by the vice president of sales and marketing, but put it out of their minds as they slowly make their way through the dozens of emails that have accumulated since Friday afternoon.

The morning goes quickly and they had practically forgotten about lunch when Erin appears at their desks.

“Ladies, ready for lunch?”

They agree in unison, lock their computers, grab purses, and then follow Erin out to her Porsche Cayenne. Erin drives her car like she drives her team. Hard and with determination, but the two enjoy the thrill of the hard corners as the tires struggle to maintain traction with the pavement.

Lunch is benign. Neither can figure why the VP would want take them to lunch. Of course, she had complimented them on doing very well in their jobs thus far, easily outpacing many of their colleagues that had more experience. There seems to be something else on her mind, but neither can make inroads into her real motives.

As dessert was being served Erin finally asked something unexpected.

“The two of you, are you dating anyone now?”

They look at each other warily. Why this line of questioning?

“No,” says Deedee, “We both had a bad boyfriend experience earlier this year and are enjoying the single life.”

Erin nods her slowly.

“Then, I guess without a boyfriend you’re not really get any action in the bedroom, huh?”

Now the two are starting to get a bit nervous. After their tryst in the dorm room they had not been intimate.

“Oh,” Erin hurries on without waiting for answer, “don’t answer that. I just have sex-on-the-brain today. My husband got me a new dildo for our anniversary and we spent the weekend with his dick or that dildo stuffed into all my holes.”

The girls are staring at Erin. She is looking right back at them very closely. After a few extended beats Erin seems to nod her head as if they passed some kind of test, and then says, “Well, I think it’s time we head back to work,” as if nothing had happened.

The ride back was just as aggressive as the ride to the restaurant. Erin dropped them off at the door near their area and then proceeded to drive around front and park closer to her desk.

The two badged themselves in, but instead of going directly to their office they headed to the break room and shut the door.

“What the fuck was that all about?” starts Amy.

“No idea,” counters Deedee, “but why would Erin tell us about getting fucked in the ass by her husband and, or a new dildo?”

“You know,” Deedee says, “I had a meeting with Carrie last week and she was asking some indirect questions about my boyfriend. Just blew it off as being either a nosy manager, or a curious gossip.”

Amy’s eyes arch as Deedee says this and then replies, “You know, Tommy was also asking about a boyfriend, but it was so oblique that I blew him off as if I didn’t get what he was asking.”

They looked at each other for a few seconds and came to the same conclusion, voiced first by Amy.

“I bet Erin put them up to finding out about our relationship status and neither one got her a satisfactory result and that’s why she took us to lunch.”

Deedee was nodding, “Yeah, I agree, but then why not stop at the boyfriend questions? Why tell us about her ass play?”

Neither could come up with a satisfactory answer for that puzzle so they trudged back to their desks to get caught up on work after an extended lunch break.

On Saturday night the duo decided to go to a bar nearby a downtown hotel that was hosting a conference for the high-tech industry. They had enough bad luck with the college crowd that they set their sites on a finding a corporate bigwig looking for a night of fun.

Deedee arrived at Amy’s place at 8:00 and from there they took an Uber downtown. When they arrived at the bar they found it to be packed with a throng of early-arriving conference members that wanted to party before the actual start of the conference on Monday. They got drinks and settled in at a high top table near the dance floor.

It didn’t take long before a pair of guys in ratty jeans and t-shirts approached their table and began to chat.