Chapter 6

On the other side of the building the first portion of the maintenance that Josh was doing was a “hurry up and wait” sort of thing, so while the server he was taking offline swapped over to the emergency backup server he was able to let Veronica know that he missed her. And he was a bit surprised to realize how much he really misses her. He works overnight jobs because he has no one in his life. There’s no one to miss and no one to miss him, not since his cat Sphinx died, so being alone in a building full of heartless machines was no big deal. But now there’s an aching for someone he cares for, a feeling that hasn’t been there in a very long time. Now she said that she wants to dance with him. He hoped and prayed that she can do a country two step.

Before he realized it, the backup server was online, and it was time to earn his pay. He wheeled the new server into the server room with a handling cart, taking only his work phone and a screwdriver. The text message with Veronica’s photo hit his personal cell phone, which was sitting on his desk just as the doors to the server room slid closed behind him. As usual, he left his personal phone outside of the server room; he didn’t want to accidentally drop it while he was wrestling these heavy machines into the rack. Normally, he would lock the phone in his desk, but no one else was in the area to go through his phone like his Canadian nemesis Terri McCarthy, so he left the phone on his desk. Right now, he wanted to hear from ‘Nica’ more than anything else on earth, but he was entrusted to do this job and he can’t afford to be distracted.

Veronica stepped out of the shower panting; it felt like no other shower she had ever taken. Her skin and body were alive with sensation, and the act of washing became a sensual experience. Everywhere she ran her soap slickened hands was alive with pleasure, every square inch of her skin was demanding attention and it seemed like her own fingers weren’t enough to please herself. When she took her razor and quickly ran it over her armpits, she felt like she found a new erogenous zone. Shaving her legs wasn’t bad, but when she began to shave around her Kitty, she almost set herself off.

She pulled on an oversize t-shirt and, walking out into Mr. Friedman’s office, she folded the couch flat and tucked a sheet onto it. A couple of pillows and her quilt and she was ready for the night, but the effort of making up the bed did little to distract her from the lonely aching she was feeling between her legs. She started to berate herself for how she had acted this evening; she has known Josh and silently watched him for a year, but to be honest, their relationship was just hours old. Or maybe weeks. It was Ant who picked Josh to work with Veronica on the kids’ campout project, and Ant never does anything without alternative reasons for his actions.

She reminded herself that every time she has been swept off her feet by a man in the past, everything ended in tears. She argued back that Josh was different; he was not arrogant and self-absorbed like every man she has run into in the beauty pageants, the modeling industry, and the business world. Never once did she feel like a piece of meat. No, Josh made her feel like a treasured doll, a princess.

She lay on the bed, trying desperately to think of something else, hoping to keep her hands above the covers. For some reason she thought of Terri, One of the girls that works for Josh. Terri often comes over when she’s bored and sits in Veronica’s office and chats with her like they’re old friends, even though they hardly know each other. Terri was barely old enough to go to a bar, while Veronica was somewhere between too old to be her sister and too young to be her mother. “You should ask Josh out, he’s pretty awesome and he’s boring like you,” said Terri one day. Then she went on to list a series of things that Josh doesn’t do, like rave parties, mosh pits, recreational hallucinogenic drugs, and outlaw drag racing.

“He sounds like quite a catch,” Veronica said, not looking up from the spreadsheet that was dominating her life at the moment.

“He is! He’s got a Jeep and he takes the top off. He took me down to Ashford Hollow on the back roads, it was so cool! but he made me keep my shirt on.” Terri leaned over and in a conspiratorial whisper said, “nothing feels better than the sun and the wind on your boobs.”

Damn it! Now all Veronica could think about was sitting topless in a jeep traveling down a hilly, winding country road on a warm afternoon with the sun and the wind caressing her bare breasts and Josh’s hand reaching over to... “Damn you Terri!” she cursed Terri who is probably passed out at some guy’s apartment in the Allentown district right now. She reached over for her purse and dug in it, searching for something without looking, and soon she found it: Bob. Her Battery-Operated Boyfriend.

Except for Jameson’s rare visits to Orchard Park, Bob has been her only lover for a long time now, and unlike most of her former lovers, he has never failed her. Bob is a shiny gold plastic six inch long “personal massager” and he’s been on business trips and vacations with Veronica and explored her body willingly since she received him as a “gag gift” from Ryan. Ryan was an investment banker with a firm that tried to lure her away from the company that eventually lost her to Anthony Friedman. Like many of the men in her past, Ryan was gracious and attentive in public, but in the bedroom, he was selfish and unimaginative, and to be honest, he was hung like a hamster. The only time she ever saw a cock that was smaller was changing diapers.

Ryan didn’t believe in foreplay other than a blowjob. He had a 100% failure rate in satisfying Veronica and he decided their problem was that she was frigid. One night at dinner at Le Parisien in mid-town Manhattan. Veronica was trying to decide between the Atlantic Salmon or the Trout Almondine. “That’s a whole fish you know,” said Ryan.

“It had better be,” Veronica replied.

“Some women find that icky,” he responded.

“Their loss, the cheek is delicious.”

Ryan then produced a gift for Veronica. “This will break the ice,” he said, and he handed her Bob with a card that insisted the dildo will cure her frigid nature. Veronica held the gold dildo up, in full sight of the restaurant, and said, “My god, it’s twice as big as you!” She ceremonially dropped Bob in her purse and walked out of the restaurant, dropping Ryan at the same time, and never looked back.

Now Bob sprang to life in her hands. She ran the buzzing little toy over the earlobe that Josh nibbled earlier. It felt good, but nothing like the simple attention that Josh had given her. She knew that plastic would not replace a flesh and blood man, but Bob is all she has right now. She touched Bob to her nipple and the sudden explosion of sensation startled her.