Chapter 1: Lunch and Learn

Celeste was beginning to regret her decision to have half a grapefruit and coffee for breakfast. She was nearly obsessed with remaining slender and bordered on being skeletal. Her high metabolic rate actually allowed her to eat considerably more than she typically consumed without a noticeable change in her body fat.

She stepped out of her cubicle to talk with her mentor and confidant about her next work assignment. She was wrapping up her current project and was really hoping that Tuan had an opening for her because she really preferred working on his projects. He was confident, competent, and treated her as a professional. She was also attracted to the slender man with his dark complexion, rangy musculature, and distinctly Vietnamese facial features. She knew he was almost twice her age, but he didn't look it.

She opened the exchange with, "What do you want to do for lunch today, Marge?"

Margret laughed. "It's barely ten o'clock. Did you skip breakfast again?"

Her gaunt cheeks turned almost as red as the short hair that framed them. "No, but grapefruit and coffee doesn't stay with me very long, and I got here early to be sure I could wrap-up the paint shop job this week. Do you think Tuan has his new job's design specs far enough along for me to start software development from them next week?"

"I don't know," Margret replied. "Why don't we ask him? We might even con him into taking us out for lunch."

Tuan smiled when Margret and Celeste stepped into his office. When given a choice on a project, Tuan would have Margret do the structural design and Celeste handle the electrical equipment and controls. Celeste was a wizard at getting conveyors and industrial robots to behave.

"Good morning," Tuan said with his deep Southern drawl. It was always startling to Celeste when Tuan began talking. His voice didn't match his facial features. "What can I do for you ladies this morning?"

Margret smiled, "We were wondering if you were ready for us to start on the conveyor job, and Celeste is more than a little peckish."

Celeste blushed again and backhanded Margret's arm.

"Well, we can't very well talk with a growling stomach distracting us," Tuan observed as he stood to get his jacket and hat. "Let's go into town where we can talk freely and get something that might put a little padding on our starving friend's frame."

None of the trio had much of a social life. Tuan's wife had died of cancer five years earlier, and he had concentrated on raising his two children. His son, Tan, was nineteen and a freshman at Mississippi State and his thirteen-year-old daughter, Kim, was a star softball player at the local middle school.

Several of the men in positions equal to Tuan's had solicited sex from coworkers through the simple expedient of wearing a badge that displayed their Capacity, Aptitude, and Potential score. Ever since the airing of "Average Joes", a guy's CAP score had become more important than looks or money for attracting the attention of willing women. And the higher the CAP score, the more willing the women became.

Nguyen Huu Tuan had an average score of 7.7 emblazoned on his card next to the Westernized version of his name: Nguyen, Tuan H. Tuan kept the card in his pocket and his score to himself. It had been a year since "Average Joes XV" had aired, and Tuan was curious about why his card hadn't become warped or chafed in the two years it had been tucked in his wallet. His driver's license and credit cards didn't hold up nearly as well as the thin scrap of plastic he had been given after he was tested at the local Confederacy office.

Tuan was a forty-five-year-old widower. He was much taller than his Vietnamese father, but had inherited his dark hair, dark eyes, and rangy musculature. He was even an inch or two taller than his feisty mother. He had her dark complexion and bright smile that was full of straight, white teeth. He was proud of his ancient name even though one in three Vietnamese is named Nguyen. It was more popular than the Western names Smith, Jones, and Johnson combined.

Margret Asbury was pushing forty and had never been in a serious relationship for very long, but she had a daughter in college from a freshman party that she didn't remember leaving. Her parents had taken care of the baby, allowing her to remain in school. She seriously cut back on the party life after realizing she was pregnant and became far more diligent with birth control after Sharon was born.

Celeste McCreless was twenty-seven. She had interned with the small automation integrator while in college and accepted a full-time position with them three years ago when she graduated. She wasn't a virgin, but most guys believed they would risk serious injury by having wild sex with someone who appeared to be both fragile and hazardous due to a total lack of padding. Most men were certain that multiple bruises could be expected after vigorously pounding Celeste's pelvis.

While both Margret and Celeste loved having a steady heterosexual partner, neither one wanted to give up their careers to be stay-at-home moms, which seriously limited their pool of suitors. The long hours and required travel made a normal home life more of a fantasy than a real possibility without serious changes in their priorities. Their career choices stressed the few relationships they had managed to develop.

It wasn't unusual for the three engineers to eat lunch together. Tuan was in the mood for a bit of curry and had talked the ladies into driving from their office in Madison to a popular Indian restaurant just off Interstate 55 on the north side of Jackson.

The restaurant was located in the shadow of the elevated interstate highway bordering an industrial area. With nothing but ugly things to look at around the restaurant, the owner had covered the windows with beautifully embroidered draperies and tapestries.

None of the patrons could see the interdiction field that surrounded the building and no one had a clue that things in the dining room were abnormal until a very large woman announced, "Ladies and gentlemen, I'm Sergeant..."

There was a commotion and loud crash in the corner of the dining room near Tuan and his dining companions. The trio had taken a table in the larger, non-smoking section of the restaurant near the entrance. A busboy had disarmed a man who was holding a small automatic to a screaming woman's head by smashing him in the ear with a heavy glass pitcher of ice water. The thin busboy nonchalantly handed the small pistol to the woman wearing a strange uniform.

Four equally large individuals had entered the restaurant behind the woman and began arranging themselves in strategic locations in the divided dining area. The woman tucked the pistol into her Sam Browne belt and motioned for one of the men to check the injured man sprawled on the floor.

"As I was saying before being so rudely interrupted, I'm Sergeant Jessica Landry. My associates and I are here to extract a few of you for service to the Confederacy. Please remain seated until we get things organized." Landry checked around the room and continued, "If the six sponsors will each step up here for a reader we can get this show started."

Tuan collected the reader from Sgt. Landry and looked around. Margret and Celeste were frantically waving for him to return to their table. Margret asked, "You are going to take us with you. Aren't you?"

Tuan's facial contortions expressed his reluctance to take members of his design team, "I don't think of you guys that way. I've got too much respect for you and don't want to risk our working relationship."

"So, you don't respect the women you have sex with?" Celeste asked with a crooked smile.

Margret's eyes twinkled when she asked, "And what kind of relationship will we have if you leave us here to become Sa'arm shit?"

Tuan was gesturing with his hands and trying to speak, but couldn't formulate a coherent response: "I don't know if I can get it on with you guys."

Even though Margret was considerably overweight she didn't hesitate. She reached under her skirt and lifted her butt just enough to peel down her panties. "Let's find out, shall we?" She was still seated when she reached for Tuan's belt buckle. "All of these spectators are making me a bit dry, though," she admitted as she looked around at the other patrons.

Celeste told her, "I'll take care of that!" Thinking that it would also get Tuan hot, Celeste slipped out of her chair onto her knees and leaned into Margret's lap. She quickly put her mouth to work on Margret's plump labia. Margret gasped at the pleasant surprise. She became wet in seconds and started squirming in her chair. Celeste replaced her tongue with her finger in the wet channel and turned her attention to Tuan's cock, which Margret had barely managed to extract from his boxers. She had no trouble taking the whole thing into her wet mouth and tight throat. Tuan's eyes opened impossibly wide as he gasped for breath.

Celeste backed off enough to tell Margret, "Lean across the table on your elbows."

The blonde-haired, blue-eyed Margret did as she was told. Tuan mindlessly allowed himself to be led by his dick as Celeste guided his glans to the patch of matted yellow hair below the plump globes of Margret's butt cheeks. As soon as their genitalia came into contact, each participant had an involuntary muscle spasm that slammed cock into slot.

Margret groaned when Tuan reached under her rumpled skirt, grabbed a bare hip with each hand and started mindlessly pounding into the soft, hot tunnel gripping his shaft. Their universe shrank to the few square centimeters of flesh that were in contact with one another.