Chapter 3

When I left the hotel on Saturday morning, I could almost feel the looks from the hotel staff. Whatever, I was quite sure that I’d never again visit that hotel, anyway.

Next Monday morning, I dropped all my extra gear back at Noelle’s desk and she stopped me before I could go to see Greg.

“Will, Mrs. Seiler is in our own meeting room and she’d like to see you.”

“Okay - and thanks, Noelle!”

On my way to the small meeting room we had there, I wondered why Mrs. Seiler still wanted to see me. During the negotiations, I had stayed well within the limits given to me and the matter had been resolved in the way she wanted it to be solved.

“Good morning, Mrs. Seiler. If I had known that you wanted to see me, I’d have come to work earlier.”

“Good morning, Mr. Hart - or may I call you Will?”

“Of course, Mrs. Seiler.”

“It’s Charlotte, Will - and what if I didn’t want everybody to know I’d be coming?”

How come I had not noticed before how sultry her voice was?

“Fine, Charlotte. But, how can I help you? Is there still something in that case that was left unresolved?”

Her laughter sent shivers down my spine.

“No, Will, nothing at all. in fact, I’m quite sure that you solved the case in the most satisfactory way possible. The reason for my visit is ... almost personal.”

“I’m not sure if I understand you, now, Charlotte.”

“Oh, I’m quite sure you do. You know, Miss Janet and Miss Valerie will come to visit us next weekend and they’ll probably stay a while.”

“What has that to do with me?”

She cocked her head and almost purred.

“But, Will, don’t you think that it would be good for some very nasty, bad girls to have some discipline every now and then?”

“Charlotte, in my youth I made a promise to my mother that I’ll stay away from other people’s relationships.”

“Harold wouldn’t mind at all. Not. At. All.”

Now, I was quite sure that she wasn’t wearing a bra and I guessed that she had no panties, either.

“Charlotte, the real problem is, there would be too many roosters in that flock. I admit that I’m intrigued and even flattered by your suggestion, but I’m also sure that you would not want to give up your position for me.”

“What makes you think that you would have been man enough to take it?”

I looked at those piercing eyes for a moment, and then forced myself to shake my head and laugh.

“Please Charlotte, don’t tempt me any more.”

I could see a smile forming on those full lips.

“Damn, I’d really liked to have felt the fireworks. But thank you for all the work you did for us all, Mr. Hart.”

“The pleasure was at least partly mine, Mrs. Seiler.”

“So I heard, Mr. Hart, so I heard.”

I could see Noelle looking confused when I escorted a wickedly smiling Mrs. Seiler back to our front door. Of course, she was hanging on my hand all the way to the door and the kiss she pressed to my lips there, left quite a little room for the imagination. Or, maybe it was her hand squeezing my dick. Or, her tits pressed against my chest. When I got back to Noelle, I could see her raising her eyebrows. I just shook my head.

“No, Noelle, that just did not happen. Besides, there was and never will be anything between Mrs. Seiler and me.”

When I got to work on Tuesday morning, I was quite sure that the case was finally closed - up until the moment I saw Noelle behind her desk. She looked at me and blushed. Suddenly it hit me - I had completely forgotten to erase the memory of the small video camera I had used. I walked to Noelle but she beat me. Smiling all too widely.

“Don’t have to say it, Will. I know that nothing happened out there, either.”

I groaned and rolled my eyes, and escaped to the safety of my own office.

During the next few weeks things gradually changed. We started getting more assignments - more normal ones - and in order to be able to handle more than a few of them, we had to start recruiting. Surprisingly, Twila was our first new employee. Having degrees both in accounting and criminal justice, she was a major catch and it did not hurt that she looked like a Nubian princess. Her degree made it easy for her to get a PI license, and she was extremely happy that she did not have to fight away the guys who just couldn’t understand her being a lesbian.

Because of all those new clients, I was extremely busy, but I should have known better than to ask Noelle to arrange a doctor’s appointment for me. Even if Janet and Valerie had assured me that they were safe, I just could not trust them that much. I didn’t know all the contacts Noelle and Twila had, but according to the other clientèle of that nice lady doctor, they were probably much more familiar with using leather, whips and cuffs than I had been. Okay, I survived the visit, and I was clean - but I decided that I would have my payback if we’d ever practice some martial arts together.

During the next months, I had a few, short, white-collar cases which all were successful. Two of them were financial frauds and one of them was a case of sexual harassment in which two male supervisors tried to harass their female workers. That last one I did together with Twila, since the bosses were not interested in me. Those two guys were very surprised when a guy they considered to be a wimp stopped them cold while they tried to make Twila understand that they she really wanted them to rape her. Since the company had taken action against the guys before any official complaints were made, they probably saved a whole lot of money. The only problem during that mission had been that I played my part as a gay office worker so well that I was asked for dates – twice.

The work had been nice, but to tell the truth the it was not really enough to fill the emptiness I was feeling. Nor did the work always bring the adrenalin boost I had learned to like. I knew that if I had even hinted about my issues to Greg or Laura, they would have insisted that I go see a shrink. Since I wasn’t willing to do that, I made myself act as normally as I could. The only problem was, that I had no good idea what that ‘normal’ was, anymore.

However, at some point I started to notice that one paralegal from the law office above us was quite often having lunch at the same time as me. What’s more, she had started smiling at me every time we saw each other in the common lounge. But the real surprise was that I realized I had smiled back at her when I walked past her to the elevator. At our own floor, I just walked to my own office and collapsed into my chair. I opened my laptop, but I just kept staring at the screen without really seeing anything. I sighed and turned around so that I could look at the parking lot. By looking out, you could guess that the autumn weather might be with us any day now.

I knew that I would soon turn 27. At that age, I had been engaged twice and married once. I had been a father of a child that was not mine. Most importantly, I had twice lost all the people who had been really close to me. When I had started working with Greg, I had made sure that my focus had been on my work and even the sex had been more about performance and release than anything else. I remembered all the important dates in my life, but I had made sure that they had always been so full of activity that I wouldn’t have any time to think. This far, I had been quite successful.

From a distance, I had been following how the Donaghue dynasty was being ripped apart piece by piece. After a few more months, their financial supremacy would only be a part of local history, and I was sure that Denice would make sure that the little extra money would be used fairly. There was also a minor note somewhere, that the previous local prosecutor was being investigated for fraud and because of some new evidence - together with some security camera footage - one certain young man might finally spend time in a juvenile correctional facility. Somehow, those things just did not seem to affect me that much any more. Of course, it still hurt to think about Emilie, Caryn and little Judy but there was no longer that pitch black feeling connected to those thoughts.

No, I was a whole lot more worried by the feelings I had when I noticed that pretty brunette smiling at me. Or maybe, I was afraid of what would happen this time. What would happen to the woman I might be interested in - and what would happen to me after that? The times I had had sex, had been times when I had been working and there had been no deep emotion connected to the physical act. My intellectual mind kept on telling me that it would be quite unlikely that something would happen to any of my possible future lady friends. I just kept on staring out, looking at people walking by. Finally I sighed and decided to talk to Noelle. I stood up I walked to my office door.

Noelle could see me approaching, and she turned to me.

“Noelle, since you know all of the people working in this building...”

“Yes?”

“There is a girl - or young woman - working at the law office above us...”

“Took you long enough. That girl has been trying to catch your eye for a while now. Her next step would probably have been a baseball bat.”

Noelle could be diplomatic, I knew it. However, she never wasted that skill with me. I really appreciated it.

“It’s not that, Noelle. I did notice her. Okay. but I’m a bit more worried about my track record.”

“What do my mean by that, Will?”

“I mean that my history with relationships could be a bit better.”

“So you have some broken relationships behind you? Big deal!”

“To me, it was.”

“So, you’d rather become a bitter old man because you were dumped a few times?”

I was about to snap at her, before I realized that she had no way of knowing about my past. So, instead of snapping, I just shook my head sadly a bit before returning to my office.

The following day, I decided to face my fears, and I asked Jennifer Downs for a dinner date. That one date led to another, and then to a third. I was quite sure that I could have bedded Jenn after the second date, but I made no effort towards that goal. Oh, she did know that I was interested, since we had danced a couple of dances after our second dinner, and there was a part of me that was lacking some attention. Jenn did not run away and I was almost sure that a small smile was on her lips when she accidentally made contact with me for the third time. However, I did not let my hands roam when I kissed her at the end of our date.

Before our third date, I had some serious soul-searching to do. How did I feel towards Jenn? And more seriously - would I dare risk my own sanity in case I’d start something serious and things suddenly went south?

By the time of our third date I had not yet reached a decision - and by the end of our date the decision was made for me. Jennifer made it clear that this date would end at my place, since she needed to know if we’d feel equally compatible inside my apartment as we seemed to be outside of it. Well, I had to admit that there was some logic in that. The only problem was that it seemed we could not agree about our compatibility during Friday night. We had to use some of Saturday morning too. After our Saturday brunch, we decided that we should check if the environment made some difference, so we ended up at her apartment that night. I guess technically, that was our fourth date.

In fact, we talked a lot more than we screwed each other silly. I found out that Jennifer was quite a normal local girl - or young woman - freshly graduated from college and now working as a paralegal at the law office located on two floors above us. She was an only child whose parents lived nearby. She shared her rented apartment with another girl who was now spending a weekend with her boyfriend. But those things were not important. Neither was the fact that she had nice ‘girl next door’ look and great body with perky B-cup breasts and nice ass. Of course, that didn’t hurt.

Much more important was that Jenn was a cheerful and friendly person, who had an easy smile and infectious laughter. I knew I could use that, since there had not been too much of genuine laughter in my life lately. We talked some about our history and she shed a few tears for me when she heard a sanitized story about Caryn and Judy. However, I did not go into details, and I just did not mention my mission to nail Sean.

After that intensive weekend I had to re-examine my feelings towards Jennifer. Did I love her? Yes, at least a bit. Did I love her like I had loved Emilie - or Caryn? No, I did not. On the other hand, what were my chances of finding a third person whom I would love in a way I had loved them? Hell, I was not even sure that I could ever again love like that. I knew that I loved Jenn, even if the love was not the same kind of overpowering love I had felt towards Emilie and finally Caryn. No, it was something comfortable and soothing. My only question was whether that would be enough for the rest of my life. I was quite sure that my life with Jenn could be better than my life without her. There just wasn’t the same kind of spark there had been with Emilie – or the soul-touching connection there had been with Caryn.

In a way, Noelle made the decision for me one Monday morning.

“Oh, my God, Will! What has happened? You are smiling.”

I stopped right there. Suddenly my smile became a bit wider and I turned and walked to Noelle. I saw Twila come to her door and look at me when I gave good kiss straight to Noelle’s lips. I could feel Noelle stiffen and Twila’s eyes were big as saucers when I pulled away.

“I’m sorry, Noelle - and Twila. I guess that could be considered sexual harassment. You just made me realize...”

I could not finish my sentence before Noelle was all over me kissing me and forcing her tongue to my mouth. I could not help noticing that her body felt just as good as it looked, and a series of improper thoughts started forming in my brain. When Noelle pulled away, I was standing there, and there was no way of hiding my erection. Noelle looked at me and smiled.

“No, Will, this was sexual harassment. I’m sure you noticed the difference.”

Then she turned away and pushed Twila back to her office and followed her there, locking the door and closing the drapes behind them. I decided that I’d better take all the incoming calls for a while. After all, I had started this.

Over the next few weeks, several things happened. Our businesses flourished as both Twila and I were able to finish some cases with minimum time, on local sites, while Noelle had found her internal nerd and was almost solving cases for us, while also studying more. Another important thing that happened was that I met Jennifer’s parents.

The next few months were a blur. The first thing that happened was that Jenn moved in to live with me. As soon as that happened, I had a short discussion with her father about my intentions regarding his daughter. I also called and made a reservation to a certain reversing operation for the beginning of the year. After that, I’d probably need to reveal the rest of my secrets to Jennifer and hope that she’d be able to handle that. At the end of the period, Greg and I had one serious discussion about one difficult job we decided to refuse, but I’d give our final denial after the Christmas holidays. That was left to me, since Greg and and Laura had decided to have a two-week vacation - a Caribbean cruise.