Chapter 4: A Surprising Third

Friday morning, Wendy, Tracy, and I were up and dressed on the early side. I was disappointed that Wendy didn’t have any clothes with her that qualified in my opinion as business casual. I explained that for the summer internship that I’d got her, she had to dress up a little. The office was not a ‘shorts and flip-flops’ kind of place.

Instead, she reminded me that she had the dress we’d gotten at Target two nights earlier. She wore that and some black flats, and although it didn’t color coordinate, it looked all right.

We’d barely talked about the internship the night before, mainly because we put the focus on Tracy. I filled in the few details that I could as we had breakfast.

Tracy had dressed in casual clothes for her lab work. It was messy and she might even slosh water or chemicals about on herself in doing her analyses of the water samples. Wendy, on the other hand, would be in one of my company’s engineering offices, doing exactly what I wasn’t sure. My boss, Tom Byer, had told me the day before that he’d have it sorted out by her arrival this morning. I drove her to the Retail Solutions offices.

Tom welcomed Wendy and explained about the internship as I listened in. What we’d worked out was that she’d work for the rest of the summer and maybe a little longer without any paperwork other than Tom’s notes and a cooperative HR person. She’d get a lump sum payment or honorarium at the end of her stint. If she did well, they’d invite her back the following summer.

Tom filled in a bit about the work that she’d do. She’d been assigned to a systems engineering team that did the custom designs based on new customer assessments. He cautioned her that she’d probably be doing ‘gofer’ work mostly, but that she’d get experience and exposure to what really went on at Retail Solutions.

Wendy looked at me in disbelief. I was making one of her dreams come true. I could tell that she also wanted to jump my bones.

At that point, I left her and told her that I’d pick her up in front of the building at five o’clock. I surreptitiously gave her some cash for lunch, and headed out to see my problem customers.

I worried about Wendy all day long. I skipped lunch to handle an emergency where a retail store’s checkout system just froze and wouldn’t even reboot. Amazing what you can do with a circuit breaker. I forced the reboot once I was onsite. I was the hero of the hour since everything started working the way it was supposed to after my presence and the reboot. I couldn’t find what had caused the freeze.

I was waiting in the car park just outside the front door to RS at ten minutes before five. Wendy came out with four other people. They were obviously best friends, laughing together about some point and then making pledges about having a good night and weekend, and seeing everybody again on Monday.

Wendy saw me and ran to the car. She got in and kissed me. I looked at her with raised eyebrows. She exclaimed, “This is the best summer job EVER! I even met the president of the company – from Austin, Texas. I did something clever and he wanted to personally thank me since he was here for meetings.”

I looked joyful but said, “I’ve never met anybody from ‘Austin’ except during my orientation when I was getting my initial training. What’d you do?” I felt infected by her enthusiasm and happiness.

Wendy blushed. “Well, they had me assigned to help the design team working up a new system for the Crystal Shoe chain that’s moved their headquarters and flagship store to Tampa. I was just supposed to be observing. I was curious, so when there was a break, I looked at the code for the in-store servers. I questioned some glitch that appeared to me to impact security and the system accuracy over time. I also could see how to fix it with some new code. I showed the project manager, and he said that the code I’d found was used like everywhere in North America. What I found and fixed impacted thousands of user problems. He told a lot of people and I got trotted around the whole building as he extolled my virtues as a really smart intern. I was kind of embarrassed I mean, it’s only my first day here.”

“How’d you know about reading code?”

“I learned that a few years ago for a science project in high school. It was C++ and was a breeze. I just got lucky today when I was trying to understand the logic in the code. Things didn’t add up, and then I saw the apparent overall implications. I wasn’t entirely sure. Seeing a fix was kind of easy. They all made the whole thing a bigger deal than I realized. The CEO thought I walked on water, too. They took my picture shaking hands with him. He was very nice to me. I think my picture is going to be in the company newsletter next month.”

I sat almost stunned. “You amaze me, Wendy – every day. I’m very proud of you. I’d like you to show me later what you did. Heck, I may have even written some of that crappy code.”

After we were underway, Wendy asked, “What’s the plan? Tracy would like to meet us for dinner. She suggested the Crab Shack on Siesta Key.”

“You’re not afraid of being spotted by somebody you know?”

“Not as a blonde with you and Tracy. Another ‘friend’ might also join us.” She used her two hands to indicate the quotes around the word friend. I knew enough from her look to not ask for more information. She wanted to tease me. She also made a curvy gesture with both hands to indicate that whomever it was had a great body shape and boobs. We both laughed.

I agreed to the plan, and we headed over to Siesta Key on the early side. Wendy and I got a table, some sodas, and talked while we waited for the others. Since I’d missed lunch, I was glad we were eating early. I got some cheese and crackers as an appetizer for the two of us.

Just after six, Tracy ran up to the table and kissed me using lots of tongue. I kissed back and that made her happy. When I came up for air, an older woman was standing beside me the table smirking at us. I know that I looked surprised and also guilty as original sin. She was obviously with Tracy. I winced, expecting a rant about how I was ... well, terrible and perverted in many ways.

Tracy grabbed the woman’s hand and pulled her in closer to the two of us. “Mom, this is Matt. Matt this is my mother, Penny Winter.”

I shot up to stand. Miss Manners was not lost on me. “OH! Hello, Mrs. Winter. So nice to meet you.” I was kind of on auto pilot and feeling guilty for kissing Tracy in public.

Mrs. Winter was a hot blonde MILF and Wendy had been correct, she had curves and generous bumps in all the right places. Tracy’s mother was what my dad used to call a ‘dish’ – that meant she was hotter than the surface of the sun. I resolved to not be a dumb boy, and I kept my focus on her eyes.

We shook hands only Mrs. Winter didn’t let go after a few seconds. She locked eyes with me and said in a matter-of-fact tone, “So, you’re the man that made my daughter pass out as she had a colossal orgasm when you were fucking her last night?”

I froze at her question. I was speechless. Further, my entire brain had gone to DEFCON LEVEL 1 – the highest emergency state that existed. Death, severe pain, and complete destruction were imminent. Nuclear missiles were inbound and would obliterate me, but only after inflicting unbearable torture and maximum agony as I became some big guy’s prison slut.

I couldn’t think of a single response other than to admit the truth and hope that death was sudden and relatively painless. I wanted to crawl into a hole – this was Tracy’s mother; the mother of the sixteen-year-old that I had fucked royally and completely to a comatose state less than twenty-four hours earlier. I expected the special victim’s unit detectives would surround me any second to make their arrest and cart me off to a cell for my sexual deviant behavior with a minor. I thought about running, but that would be the coward’s way out.

Penny kept squeezing my hand in an attention getting way. She continued to smirk, “Well, are you that man?” She was grinning and almost laughing. She knew that she was putting me on the spot in a huge way. She was beginning to laugh. How odd.

I muttered, “Errr, yeah, I guess I am. She seemed all right when she regained consciousness.” I shot a quick glance at Tracy to make sure she was functional.

Mrs. Winter smiled at me instead of continuing to smirk, “Well, it’s really nice to meet you. Please sit down.” She greeted Wendy with a kiss on the cheek, and sat next to me at the four-person table. I tried to assess how much weaponry she could carry in her large shoulder bag. The idea of brass knuckles on her manicured hand I found scary. I was guessing that she carried a pistol and could hit my kneecaps at a hundred yards if I ran.

Tracy said in an aside to me, “I tell my mom everything, and she tells me everything.”

I inquired politely to Mrs. Winter, “Single mother?” I realized that I’d never heard mention of a father from Tracy.

Penny answered the question, “For the past eight years. My ex moved on to greener and younger pastures. He lives out of state now, and doesn’t care much about us these days. He has a new brood of kids to raise with the bimbo he chose over me.”

I was confounded about what to say next. Her acknowledgement that I’d fucked her daughter left me in a severe brain fog. Was I supposed to apologize or promise that I wouldn’t do that again?

Penny turned to Wendy and asked about her first day as an intern at Retail Solutions. Wendy told her story about finding a major coding flaw to her and Tracy. They applauded her work and I tried to look appreciative. Tracy also shared about some more about her red tide analyses. I listened, tried to look intelligent, and tried not to look like the world’s largest sex pervert that preyed on teenage girls.

The next I knew Penny had me talking about my house and the work that Wendy had helped me with. I pulled out my phone and showed her some of the before and after pictures. I told her of my intention to flip the property after a few more projects. I’d had the house for two years at that point. Penny studied every photo with a critical eye.

Penny finally announced, “I’m in real estate with ReMax. You have done a wonderful job. I hope when you’re ready to sell that you allow me to be the listing agent.” She reached in her purse and presented me with a business card. I immediately put the card in my wallet after studying it.

I was still speechless. I muttered, “Okay, I will.” I owed her that much for fucking her daughter into an unconscious orgasmic state.

A waitress came and took our orders after delivering us more drinks. I appreciated the diversion and hoped it would last for a couple of hours. It was only a few seconds. Penny ordered wine, and I changed to wine, too. I needed liquid courage to continue the dinner.

As soon as the waitress left, Penny said, “You don’t seem the womanizer type.”

I shook my head. “I’m not. Before I found Wendy in my car, I hadn’t been on what you might call a date in three years, and before that maybe two years. I’ve been very shy and I don’t have much confidence around women.” I could barely look Penny in the eye.

Penny teased, “Well, you’re doing fine with the sixteen-year-olds.”

“I’m totally embarrassed. Worse, I really like them, maybe more. I’ve never felt like this about anybody, and I feel this about the two of them.”

“Love?” Penny bluntly asked.

“Yeah, probably. They make my heart and head feel all funny. I worry about us hurting each other if we declare that this is true love or whatever. I think it’s too soon. They both told me they love me, and I reciprocated. I’m feeling so protective of them.”

Penny nodded, “Good, you’re just who Tracy said you were. She’s in love with you, too; and I probably would be, too, if you’d done to me what you did to her last night.”

“She’s so smart. Wendy, too.” I tried to deflect the conversation.

“They said you were smart.”

I shrugged. “Hell, I’m scared of my own shadow. Did Tracy tell you how Wendy and I met?”