Chapter 3: A Friend

-- MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 2008 --

“So I assume we won’t be having any nooners at the girls’ apartment for a little while,” June deadpanned within the privacy of the plush, spacious corner office we shared.

I reclined with my desk chair tilted way back, my hands behind my head and my feet propped up on the desk. With furrowed eyebrows, I replied, “Why would you say that?”

June frowned. “While I may not have much personal experience in the matter, I would expect that a couple suffering relationship problems would be less inclined to spontaneous intimacy.”

“Translation: most people have less sex when they’re fighting. Well, Adrienne and Sasha aren’t ‘most people’.” I chuckled. “They’re working through their relationship issues together, and in the meantime, if one or both of them wants a little stress relief ... Well, let’s just say I don’t expect the invitations to go have nooners will decline at all. In fact, they may increase.”

June mused on that.

I grinned. “And even if they don’t want to have ‘spontaneous intimacy’ with each other, it’s all the more reason for one of them to still invite me - and you too – over to help them de-stress.”

“Ah, that makes sense then. An intimate couple suffering relationship problems might be less inclined to fuck each other, but a couple with an open relationship like theirs would perhaps be more inclined to seek other partners like you and me. I’ll append that little addendum to my mental catalog of human interpersonal outcomes.”

“I know. I can actually see the gears and sprockets in your brain at work.”

June leveled her gaze at me before rolling her eyes. “We’ve wasted enough time with your water cooler gossip. Let’s get to work. Have you finished Hashimoto’s mezzanine capital?”

I sighed and dropped my feet off the desk. “Yes. I banged it out this morning in the thirty seconds we weren’t talking about Adrienne and Sasha,” I drawled.

June leveled her gaze at me again and rolled her eyes once more. I could almost hear her voice in my head ordering, ‘Well get going then.’ Not like my quasi-telepathic link to Dawn or anything, but I got the gist of it.

Chuckling, I slid my chair in beneath my desk and grabbed my mouse. I was just clicking over to the mezzanine capital tab on my spreadsheet when a knock sounded at the office door. I looked through the window next to the door and saw our managing director, Hye-Kyoung, right outside, and waved for him to come in. The door wasn’t locked.

Hye-Kyoung came in, and he wasn’t alone. Penny was right behind him, and just behind her was a tall, blonde, classically handsome young man who could’ve been a movie star had he been so inclined. Seriously, the guy was like Brad Pitt’s equally attractive younger brother.

“Hey, Dalton,” I greeted in a friendly manner as I rolled my chair back and stood up. “Long-time no see.”

Following my lead, June also rolled her chair back from her desk and stood. She followed in my shadow as I extended a hand to the newcomer.

“Good morning, Ben,” Dalton replied with an equally friendly smile, radiating charisma. He then looked past my shoulder and nodded politely. “Good morning, June.”

June remained behind my right shoulder rather than step forward or even verbally greet him - not nervous, just shy.

“What brings you out to the West Coast?” I asked. “If your plan was to get into Hollywood, you’re about four hundred miles too far north.”

The incredibly handsome young man chuckled and shook his head. We’d met twice in New York and once in Chicago. Dalton Mitchell Alistair IV was a year older than me and another rising star in the ranks of JKE analysts. He came from old money and had a million connections to other blue-blood families up and down the East Coast, with a talent for whispering a few words into the right ears to find out whatever he needed to know. In our line of work, having the right information could mean the difference between a hundred-million dollar deal and coming up empty, and he’d come up with the right information enough times to put him on the fast track to promotion.

“Hollywood can’t pay me enough to give up what I love,” Dalton replied with a shrug before leaning in, his posture suggesting he was taking me into his personal confidence. “And if I’m right about this little pet project of mine, I’ll wind up making more money than even an A-list movie star.”

I chuckled. “Care to let us in on this pet project of yours?”

His smile was all teeth, a smile he removed from view while miming zipped lips. Raising both hands, he then grinned and said, “Funny you ask that.” He then turned and glanced over at Hye-Kyoung, who was sitting on the front edge of my desk with his arms folded across his chest.

Arching an eyebrow, I also turned to look at our managing director. Hye-Kyoung immediately gestured back at Dalton. “I’m assigning you two ... and Penny ... to work with Dalton on this project. He’s got the connections. You two have the analytical skills. And Penny can help out until we find her a new project teammate.”

“If you can find her a new teammate,” June muttered so softly I could barely hear her, even though she was right behind my shoulder. I fought the urge to glance back and glare at her.

I frowned. “What about Hashimoto? We’ve almost closed it.”

Hye-Kyoung nodded. “You two can wrap up Hashimoto by the end of the week. If you need any help, Penny can assist.”

June frowned and spoke up. “What about Karadyne?”

“I gave Karadyne to Rakesh and Kamar,” Hye-Kyoung explained. “That one is six months out at least, and my marching orders are to get Dalton’s pet project up to speed ASAP. Letting you two wrap up Hashimoto is really just a courtesy, but seriously, finish it up by the end of the week.”

I glanced back at June and she scowled a little. She was always the thorough one, double-checking and then triple-checking her numbers to ensure nothing had been missed. Dealing with deadlines was part of the business, but she’d never liked feeling rushed. Still, I nodded to our managing director and assured him, “We’ll have it wrapped up by COB Friday.”

Hye-Kyoung nodded back. With that settled, he stood up straight and began to walk out of the office.

“Hey, one question first,” I interposed. “Are we just gonna keep calling this ‘Dalton’s Pet Project’?”

“Ask him,” Hye-Kyoung replied with a shrug. “I’m on a need-to-know basis with this one, and apparently I don’t need to know.” With that, our managing director walked out and left the four of us alone.

Dalton followed just far enough to close the door, once again giving us privacy. “My apologies for the secrecy, but I think we all know that in this game we play, there aren’t any prizes for second place.”

“It’s gonna be hard for us to do our work if you can’t even give us a name,” June grumbled.

“Penny can handle pulling public records and getting the initial analysis out of the way, right Penny?” He turned and flashed a charming smile at the redhead, who beamed and nodded perkily.

“Of course!” Penny insisted brightly, looking a little bit ... smitten?

“Wrap up Hashimoto,” Dalton continued, “and then on Monday I’ll grant you two access to the encrypted project folder. It’s coded in the system as ‘4D’.”

“You mean like your nickname?” I asked with a grin, having heard Dalton’s New York co-workers call him that several times. I’d been told in a bar after work that Dalton was even better than reality because 4D was a dimension better than 3D.

Yeah, the joke only worked if you were really, really drunk.

Dalton chuckled. “At least you’ll know you’re in the right project!”

Dawn picked up on the second ring. “Hey, babe. It’s after seven. Are you just now heading home?”

“Yeah,” I replied wearily as June and I walked out of our office and headed for the elevators, my phone in my pocket with my earbuds plugged in: standard operating procedure for me to call my best friend and let her know I was leaving. “We need to wrap up Hashimoto by the end of the week so we can start this new top-secret project, so June and I have been working pedal to the metal all day.”

“Poor thing. Want me to come over and make you feel better?” There was an encouraging innuendo in her voice.

I chuckled. “That sounds awesome, actually.”

“Your place or mine?”

“Uh, better make it mine,” I replied. “For one thing, I haven’t eaten yet. And more importantly, if I head over there, the twins are liable to jump me.”

“And that would be a BAD thing?” Dawn chuckled.

“The three of you had me last night AND Friday night; they should be good for a couple of days. Besides, tonight’s Monday.”

“Right, right.” Dawn knew that Monday nights were usually Kim nights. “Well I’ll head over to your place now and make sure dinner’s ready, how about that?”

“You’re the best.”

“Don’t I know it.”

I chuckled. “I love you.”

“Love you too. See you soon.”

“Mmm-wah!” Dawn and I broke our kiss and I set her back down on the floor, having briefly picked her up for that welcoming liplock after coming in through the front door.

“Joo!” BJ cheered from way down by the floor, both arms raised in a silent plea to be picked up, just like Dawn.

June smiled wearily and scooped up the toddler in her arms. She gave him a quick peck on the nose before turning and handing him off to me.

“Daddy!” BJ cheered happily as I also gave him a quick peck on the nose.

Parking my son on my left hip, I walked into the living room and glanced around, finding the place empty. “Where’s Kim?”

“Oh, I sent her upstairs to take a power nap,” Dawn explained. “She had a bit of a headache.”

I winced. “Virus or Viktoriya?”

“Neither. I think she’s just tired and could use the rest. I’m sure she’ll be up and about in a bit.” Dawn replied. “But in the meantime, I got dinner ready for you two.”

“Thanks, Dawn,” June said politely as she walked away to dump her computer bag in her room.

I had gone to drop my computer bag next to the couch without removing BJ from my hip. When I looked up, Dawn was staring off towards June’s bedroom. “She looks tired. Unusual. I didn’t know robots could look tired.”

I snorted and sighed. “It’s been a long day. I mean, we’ve stayed at the office longer, but today was wall-to-wall work. We didn’t even really get lunch, so that smells amazing.” I inhaled three times dramatically, as if savoring the most incredible smells imaginable.

“Nuh-nuh-nuh,” BJ copied me, muttering cutely while miming that he was inhaling smells as well.

Dawn giggled and quickly kissed his chubby cheeks. “I’ll go fix you some plates. Stay here and play with him.”

“Thanks, babe,” I replied while settling down onto the floor. Today’s toys were Duplo building blocks, and I spent a few minutes having BJ show me the little town he had built.

A few minutes later, Dawn called us over to the table to eat and she took over playing with BJ. June emerged from her bedroom in an unflattering baggy t-shirt and an old pair of sweatpants, not that she particularly cared about how sexy she did or did not look in front of me. She still had Hashimoto on the brain, and even though the absolute LAST thing I wanted to do was talk about work, June could be pretty one-track minded about these things.

I kept trying to change the subject or otherwise explain that I was sick and tired of thinking about work, but June was like a pit bull with half the steak already in her mouth. She wasn’t letting go, and eventually I gave in so that we spent the next twenty minutes arguing as if we were still in our San Francisco corner office.

But once our volume started getting out of control, Dawn actually hollered, “Hey! You two are at home! And you’re making BJ worried!”

June and I both blinked and looked over to find that BJ indeed had stood up and toddled over to within ten feet of us, looking concerned.

“Daddy okay?” he asked in a grave tone. “Joo mad.”

I chuckled and extended my arms to him. “Yes, June is mad. But that’s okay. It’s like her default setting. And grown-ups argue sometimes, that’s all.”

“Joo loud,” he insisted while I picked him up into my lap, and June blushed while staring down at the table, looking chagrined.

“I’m sorry, BJ,” June replied a little stiffly, eyes downcast.

I was rather surprised to hear her immediately offer up an apology. She never apologized to ME. But then again, BJ was certainly cuter than I was.

Still, BJ didn’t look convinced. He frowned at June, and sensing that I was quite literally holding a secret weapon in my arms, I parked my face right next to BJ’s while exaggerating an apologetic expression. “I think Auntie June can do a better job of saying sorry, don’t you little man?”

“Joo say sowwee,” BJ insisted.

Rolling her eyes, June nevertheless pursed her lips and tried again, this time with a better facsimile of an apologetic expression on her face as well. “I’m sorry, BJ.”

“Say sowwee... Daddy,” BJ commanded.

For a brief moment, June glared at the boy, incredulous at his obviously unreasonable demand. But he was impossible to get angry with, and after taking a deep breath, June fixed me with her remorseful façade and stated evenly, “I’m sorry for yelling, Ben.”

“Now kiss and all bettah!” BJ pronounced, grabbing my head and pushing it towards June.

Somewhere behind me, Dawn couldn’t stifle her giggles anymore. I chuckled and puckered up with an exaggerated kissy face. June blushed, brushed her bangs back, and leaned across the corner of the table towards me, puckering up as well.

“Mmmmmmm-wah!” I said while pressing my lips to June’s and then backing away dramatically. June herself was silent, but she smirked and shook her head in amusement.

BJ nodded happily, looking rather proud of his role in patching up the argument. He patted my forearm, his signal that I could put him down now. And he scampered back to Dawn, who wrapped him up in her arms and gave me the kind of look that made her voice pop into my head, saying, I want one.

I popped my eyebrows, giving her a look that replied, ‘Don’t tease me.’

“See?” BJ told Dawn as if he was passing on ancient wisdom. “Kissy make bettah.”

“Yes. Kissy make bettah,” Dawn parroted with a smile, puckering up and kissing BJ on the lips.

BJ turned back to face us. “Daddy and Joo mo’ kissy! Mo’ kissy! Mo’ bettah!”

June and I smirked at each other, and even her robot façade cracked as she flashed me a genuine smile. I puckered up, she did too, and this time I scooted my chair closer to the corner of the table so I could hold her head and give her a real kiss, with plenty of tongue.

June moaned, a little aroused, and it occurred to me that she hadn’t gotten laid in a week – not since that clandestine office fuck last Tuesday, after which Penny had shown up outside the door to tell us her teammate Conrad had quit. Hashimoto meetings had occupied all of last week and we hadn’t hooked up any of the weeknights, either. She’d then spent all weekend with her parents per usual, and today we’d both been too busy with work.

So when we finally broke for air, I looked into my co-worker’s eyes and intoned softly, “Come to my room tonight?”

June panted softly from inches away, raising her eyebrows. “Monday nights are Kim nights.”

I chuckled. “And what, you think she’d mind you joining us?”

June was still panting, although more from arousal now than lack of oxygen, and her dark eyes were aflame.

“Can we put BJ to bed early?”

Unfortunately, no, we couldn’t put BJ to bed early. Toddlers tend to sleep in accordance with their routine, and any attempt to park him in his toddler bed ahead of schedule would only result in (A) said toddler immediately climbing OUT of bed and (B) stopping at the baby gate to Kim’s bedroom howling at the grave injustice of it all.

That would definitely be a mood-killer.

So yeah, my distinctly extraordinary sex life was being made somewhat more ordinary by the need to schedule evening hookups around toddler time, not that I had any grounds for complaint. First and foremost, I was only too aware that Kim handled the bulk of BJ’s parenting, insisting that she wanted me to enjoy my youth and spend time with the many other important people in my life. Seriously, not every young father had the option of walking down the road to bed down with his ridonkulously gorgeous blonde best friend and hottie twin sisters any night that his not-quite-two-year-old had middle of the night teething tantrums. Not that I’d ever actually walked out on Kim and done so...

Yet...

Admittedly, the option had been quite tempting.

Thankfully, tonight would not be one of those nights. Kim’s little headache passed without incident and she joined us about an hour after June and I returned home. Dawn took her leave of us then, giving me a quick kiss and a casual, “See ya tomorrow.”

“G’night, babe,” I drawled while patting her ass as she went out the door.

She wasn’t the only one turning in for the night. Five seconds after Dawn left, BJ let his head fall back as he gaped his mouth open for a ginormous yawn. His whole face was clenched save for the massive hole in the middle of his head that looked big enough to fly one of his toy planes through. I had no idea why then it was so difficult for him to fit a teaspoon of green peas through that gap whenever I tried to feed him.

Regardless, BJ’s Okaachan was more than ready to heft her little darling up in her arms and carry him upstairs. I followed, pulling faces that made BJ giggle as he stared at me over his mama’s shoulder. But when we got to his room, he let out another ginormous yawn and seemed ready for bed. Kim and I worked in tandem to get him changed into new pajamas with fresh diapers. A few minutes later we gave him goodnight kisses, turned out the lights except for one nightlight, and stepped back. Kim wrapped her arm around my waist, and I held her shoulder while we watched our son smile up at his parents, supremely content and unbearably cute. We waited for about a minute to make sure he was settling down, and only then did we leave the room, lock the baby gate, and close the door.

June was already in the master bedroom, reclining across the king-size bed on her left side, still clad in her fugly t-shirt and baggy sweatpants. I smiled at her when she crooked a finger to me, and I glanced back at Kim. But my hanamuguri waited silently just outside her own bedroom door, ears cocked for any sounds of distress from her little Akachan.

When she felt my gaze, Kim glanced up and gestured for me to go ahead without her. Perhaps if June were not joining us, she would’ve felt obligated to come take care of me. But I already knew my baby mama felt a sense of relief knowing how many other women were in my orbit and would be more than happy to take care of me in her stead.

So I walked into the master bedroom and flashed June a content smile. Feigning ignorance, I stroked my chin and asked dramatically, “Now where were we...?”

June didn’t answer except to stretch out and hook the back of her right heel behind my leg and tug me closer to the edge of the bed. Once I was within reach of her right arm, she hooked her fingers into the pocket of my shorts, first pulling on it and then my arm until I collapsed on the bed directly beside her.

Giving me a mysterious smile, the pretty Chinese girl coyly curled a finger to me in invitation for me to approach closer, but just as I did, her smile broadened as she asked, “At what number do you think we need the 10-year T-bill in order to safely predict our leverage risk for the first six months after acquiring Hashimoto?”

I blinked in surprise. “Umm, what?”

June laughed. “I’m just fucking with you. C’mere and kiss me.”

Did she just crack a joke?

Shut up and don’t question your good fortune. Just go with it.

I smiled and shook my head. Even after all this time, I still didn’t quite get what made June tick. But rather than question her idea of a funny joke as a prelude to sex, I rolled my eyes and indeed just went with it. We were soon making out on my bed, June’s pace decidedly more languid and leisurely than one of our bent-over-the-table office quickies. But even so, I could tell she was pretty antsy to get her satisfaction after going a week since her last orgasm (well, her last orgasm with me).

It was no surprise, then, when June bypassed an extended makeout session in favor of working down her own sweatpants and panties while we kissed. When she got the two garments stuck around her ankles, she broke the kiss to roll onto her back and yank the offending articles off and drop them to the floor. Then, she was quick to crawl up my body, swing a knee over to the other side of my head, and park her neatly shaved pussy right in my face.

Well, I knew what to do with THAT. Grabbing hold of June’s tight Caesar salad-fed buttocks without much fat on them, I tugged her crotch down over my mouth and fed on her. She moaned and undulated her hips trying to mash her clit onto my nose or something, but I kept a firm grip, swiped my long tongue through her wet furrow and jabbed it into her hole a few times. And only when she stopped wriggling and fighting me did I finally shift position to take her little pleasure button between my lips and start sucking on it like a miniature penis.

“Ohhh...” she moaned immediately, her shoulders slumping as her chest collapsed forward. June had never been the loudest or most vocal of lovers. I knew some of the women I was with enjoyed stimulating me with naughty phrases about how big my dick felt or how much they loved feeling me pound the shit out of them. June was a little more introspective, concentrating on her own pleasure instead of worrying about whether or not her tight pussy felt good for me. She already knew her tight pussy felt good for me, you see. Not that I minded in the least. I rather enjoyed pleasing her, so please her I did.

I varied my technique from time to time, calling up my user manual of June’s slender figure with her unique pattern of erogenous zones. I’d realized her right nipple seemed to be hardwired to her clit, so I slid my hands inside her baggy t-shirt with my left hand and started tweaking the hard eraser-sized nub I found within in a sort of back-and-forth Morse Code communication with the way I tapped the tip of my tongue on her love button. And of course it had been made abundantly clear to me that June liked the butt play, so while I continued to cup June’s buttcheek with my right hand, I made sure to let my fingertips delve a little deeper into her crack so that I could buzz my middle fingertip across her anus every now and again as well.

“Oh, holy FUCK, Ben...” June whined, her rare verbal exclamation meaning more to me than a dozen similar curses from almost any other more vocal lover.

I pushed June up to the edge of orgasm but didn’t push her over. I was perhaps a little vengeful after she’d put me through all her complaining about Hashimoto instead of letting me relax and enjoy an evening with my son. She whined and whimpered, almost begging me with her tone to let her cum. But I was being mean and kept her at bay.

At least, that was the plan. Just when I was readying myself for the next set of moves to tease her without any payoff, a sudden wet warmth surrounded my shaft, and I abruptly gasped into June’s crotch. My middle finger had been titillating June’s anus at the time, and I also accidentally popped the digit through her winking sphincter to the first knuckle in my surprise.

June squealed and came, the startling sensation stimulating her senses and shooting up her spine to set off spasmodic shudders that signaled her sweet satisfaction. She dumped a load of honey on my face while I was inhaling at the unexpected feeling. I couldn’t even recall when my pants came off, so distracted I’d been. Still, my sex-wired brain rapidly informed me that my hanamuguri had finally joined us and swallowed half my dick into her warm, wet, and welcoming mouth. And I groaned in ecstatic pleasure as Kim started going to work on me.

For her part, June toppled off my face wearing a self-satisfied smirk. It wasn’t like this was the first time I’d seen her in such a state, and yet whenever I conjured up an image of June in my head I always imagined her at rigid attention, with perfect posture, spine stiff as if she had a stick up her butt at all times.

There’s something else we’d like to stick up her butt.

Quiet, you.

The point is: June was the exact opposite of that in this moment. She lay spineless on the bed beside me, her body a limp haphazard form without any geometric structure whatsoever. I felt like I’d done a good job, having fulfilled Keira’s Golden Rule from long, long ago, which freed me up to enjoy the other sight before me.

The mother of my son stared up at me with dark brown, almond-shaped eyes, already naked and looking as beautiful as ever. Scratch that, she was more beautiful in this moment, because in this moment she glowed with an inner sense of purpose.

I could never claim to understand exactly why Kim Fukuzaki was the way she was: mother but not wife, self-described submissive but effectively head of my household, with the appearance of a delicate Japanese geisha but the decision-making authority of a Shogun. She had long been a bundle of contradictions that defied logic to me, from her active participation in having a child out of wedlock with me to her simultaneous insistence that we would never be married. In a way, the paradox of Kim’s entire state of being was best exemplified by the accessory she’d chosen to wear for tonight’s sexual encounter, a hot pink collar usually worn by a submissive yet stitched with the words “Self-Interest” on it.

Of average height, slight of build, and with a B-cup bosom, Kim didn’t physically measure up to some of the busty Amazons in my life, not that she’d ever try. Her value to me went far beyond the physical, but that’s not to say she couldn’t please me. Whereas June approached sex with me primarily for her own benefit, Kim was quite the opposite. In our household and when it came to parenting our son, Kim was quite clearly in charge and not shy about letting me know it. But in the bedroom her original submissive nature came to the fore. She loved nothing better than to surrender herself to my absolute control, to give herself up to me as a vessel from which to take my pleasure, in any position that happened to strike my fancy. I used her body as a supple, wonderfully responsive masturbatory tool, and I gave her exquisitely extravagant orgasms in compensation.

Ultimately, despite their different mental approaches to carnal intimacy, the end results for both June and Kim were more or less identical. June’s physical attributes were quite similar to Kim’s, and although she didn’t adopt formalized “positions”, my modi operandi for having sex with both young women were basically the same: Fuck her hard. Fuck her deep. Take charge and make her mind explode with ecstasy.

June let me have my way with her because she was a sexual novice and trusted me to make it good for her. Kim was no sexual novice, but she likewise found her highest levels of pleasure when putting her trust in me to make it good for her. Sure, I could simply snap my fingers and order Kim into Second Position (and I did just that, shortly after she gave me that warm-up blowjob) in a way I couldn’t do with June. But then again, if I physically parked June in the modified doggy-style with her ass in the air but her cheek against the mattress with her arms helplessly stretched out in front of her, the outcome in the end was the same.

June was also quite amenable to taking directions from me, so long as they were directions to do stuff she’d want to do anyway, like when I pulled out of her tight pussy after fucking her missionary style to say, “Go climb on top of Kim and make out with her face-to-face so I can switch back and forth between your two super-tight twats.” Yeah, with Kim it would have been an order from her “Master”, but like I said, the end result was the same.

The three of us actually finished that first round in much the same way we’d started, with June lying next to us limp and spineless on the bed beside me and wearing a self-satisfied smirk from her latest orgasm. Kim had been riding me cowgirl, but at my order she dismounted and swallowed half my dick into her warm, wet, and welcoming mouth. My hanamuguri used her mouth and right hand to fellate me with expert skill, staring up into my eyes in eager anticipation for my load. And in the end, I thrust my hips off the mattress, groaning as I peppered Kim’s mouth with liquid pellets of creamy sperm.

Shuttling her wrist back and forth with lightning speed, Kim jacked my rod to coax out every droplet into her mouth while her lips maintained a perfect seal just below my crown. She took in everything I had to give her, missing absolutely nothing. When my hips finally crashed back down onto the mattress, she closed up her mouth and tilted her head back, fighting valiantly to hold it all inside. And then she completed the final part of my order to her: mashing her mouth over June’s to snowball my creamy load straight between the other girl’s gaping lips.