Burned out. That's what I was on the occasion of my boss's 4^th of July party last year. I was 26 years old, just three years out of UC Heritage's school of Business, a junior accountant at one of the most prestigious firms in the greater Heritage area, and I was just as burned out as a man could be and still drag himself into work each day.

I had been at Breckman, Remington, and Dowel since my graduation and I had been working a minimum of eighty hours every week since. My wife - who had been my high school girlfriend and had put me through college by working as a waitress - had put up with my extended absences for 16 months before packing her bags and boogying on down the road to greener pastures. Our divorce had been finalized just weeks before the party. I think the lack of any social life in the wake of our separation contributed to what happened that night.

Stephen Remington III was one of the senior partners of the firm and was the direct boss of my division. He was a chubby, balding man in his fifties and a stern, unforgiving taskmaster to his underlings. He was also a very rich man, as were all of the partners, and he owned a winery in one of the lush valleys of nearby Lake County. It seemed that in order to reward the efforts of the sixty-one accountants that had spent the past year slaving under his command, he decided to throw us an Independence Day party at his spread, complete with barbeque, drinks, dancing, and fireworks. Attendance at the event, as was the case with any company function, was pretty much mandatory.

And so it came to pass that instead of sitting at home and enjoying one of the few days that the firm's offices were actually closed down and locked, I put on a stylish pair of khaki shorts, a stylish blue polo shirt, and hopped in my car for the ninety minute drive to Lake County.

The winery that Mr. Remington owned sat upon five hundred acres of prime real estate nestled against the side of a valley. Most of the land was of course taken up by the vineyards, which stretched up and down a series of gently rolling hills along the main road. The winery itself - a majestic, three-story building of classic Spanish architecture - sat on the far west end of the property, right off the paved entrance road. It was surrounded by a huge, immaculately maintained lawn that was landscaped with hedges, flower gardens, palm trees, and a large brick barbecue enclosure. Just beyond the lawn, between the winery building and the start of the vineyards, was a round duck pond, about three hundred feet in diameter. In the center of this pond was a small island that was covered with more of the hedges and five or six of the palms. In all, the property was a very impressive chunk of land, an opulent display of our boss's considerable wealth - wealth that we peons at the bottom of the ladder had been responsible for earning for him.

It was ten minutes after four when I pulled into the winery and parked my Mercedes (which was leased of course - my ex-wife was entitled to alimony and child support that amounted to nearly forty percent of my salary) among the other high-end automobiles of my peers. A short walk brought me to the barbecue area, which seemed to be the center of the activity. A bar had been set up here and two uniformed bartenders were on duty, mixing and serving drinks. There was also a bandstand upon which amplifiers, microphones, a drum-set, and a keyboard set were sitting idle. Recorded music was currently playing at soft volume from the speakers. Milling about everywhere, in groups of four or six or eight, were my co-workers, mostly men but a few women as well. Nearly all of them had a spouse or at least a significant other hanging on their arm or hovering close by. I felt a small pang of regret that I had been forced to attend alone but my busy schedule of late had precluded the possibility of even digging up a platonic date, let alone an actual one. I greeted people as I entered the crowd, shaking hands here, giving hugs there, passing a few phony words as if I really liked them. In truth, I detested almost everyone that I worked with. They were money-grubbing back-stabbers who would do anything that it took to get ahead and who would do anything they thought they could get away with to keep others down.

I found Mr. Remington near the bar and headed over to make the obligatory greeting. He was dressed in his own pair of khaki shorts and his own polo shirt with the firm's logo upon the breast. His ample stomach, forged from years of three martini lunches, bulged over his waistline enough to conceal his belt. He was sipping what appeared to be a scotch on the rocks and puffing on a large cigar. Standing next to him was his wife, whom I had never met before but who I recognized from the pictures on his desk. She was a trophy wife in every sense of the word. A striking brunette, she was slim and petite, her body firmly toned, undoubtedly from sessions with a personal trainer. Her breasts were small but firm, an aristocratic size that did not have the unnatural symmetry of enhancement surgery shaping them. She was decked out in a cute but fashionable summer dress. She looked about twenty, twenty-four at the oldest, but I knew from company gossip that she was actually thirty-one. That same gossip had informed me that she was his second wife, replacing an older model about five years before, and that she herself was now approaching obsolescence and eventual replacement.

"John," Remington greeted when I walked up. "Glad you could make it son. We've got quite a party in store today." He held out his hand to me.

"Uh... it's Jeff," I corrected, shaking with him.

"Sorry, Jeff," he said, shaking his head in amusement. "That was some good work you did on the Feller account last week. We couldn't have wrapped that up without you."

"Thank you sir," I mumbled, doing my best to appear gracious even though I had not done any work on the Feller account or anything remotely related to it. "It's nice to be here. A beautiful place that you have here."

"It's a good hobby," he said, looking around in pride at his acres. "Not a bad tax write-off either. Have you met my wife?"

"No, I don't believe I've ever had the pleasure," I said, casting my eyes on her and smiling.

"I'm Suzanne," she said, returning my smile and holding out her hand to me.

I shook it, feeling the soft skin of one that has never done a day's work in her life. I told her that I was pleased to make her acquaintance.

"Are you here by yourself Jeff?" she asked me. "Surely a good looking guy like you didn't come stag."

"I'm afraid I have," I told her. "I've been working kind of hard lately and wasn't able to find a date." I shrugged as if it didn't matter. "What can you do, huh?"

"Well hopefully we'll keep you entertained," she told me.

"Yes," Remington cut in, "I've hired some professional pyrotechnic technicians for the fireworks display tonight."

"Really?" I said, as if interested.

"Indeed," he assured me. "Of course I had to apply for a special permit in order to have a professional quality display, but it helps when you're poker buddies with two of the county supervisors." He laughed at his own wit. "Anyway, these guys are from Ukraine and they have ten years of experience in this sort of thing. They help with the New Year's Eve show in downtown Heritage every year. They've promised me a hell of a show."

"Is that right?" I asked, marveling to myself over the thought of Ukrainian pyrotechnicians running an American Independence Day show.

He nodded. "They're going to set everything up on the island out there in the duck pond and shoot them straight up. It cost me a pretty penny but it should be well worth it I hope." He winked at me. "Besides, it's all a write-off, right? Since this is a business gathering."

I spent another minute or so making idle chit-chat with the two of them and then Steve Randall and his wife showed up to make their own niceties to the boss, allowing me to slip away. I immediately headed for the bar and ordered a stiff drink.

Soon, the barbeque was fired up, filling the air with the odor of burning briquettes. As the fire roared and then settled down, bringing the coals to optimum cooking temperature, I mingled with my co-workers - as was expected of me - mostly listening as they talked of upcoming projects, past projects, current projects, and their own hopes and dreams of someday making partner in the firm. It was a commonly accepted notion that that particular reward could conceivably come after only twelve to fifteen years of eighty-hour weeks. They all seemed excited by this thought. It only served to depress me.

Most of the other accountants and their significant others visited the bar infrequently, getting a single drink and then sipping on it until the ice was completely melted. This was a company function after all and the boss was present. Nobody wanted to be seen swilling down the booze like they were having a good time. It might reflect badly on their careers and add a few years to that twelve to fifteen that making partner took. They did this despite the fact that both Mr. Remington and his wife were pounding down scotch like it was going out of style. I made no such accommodations. I put away four whisky sours in my first hour there, getting myself a premium, grade-A buzz going. I received a few strange looks from my peers for doing this but I ignored them, caring less with each sip that I took. I figured that since I had been forced to be here, ninety miles from home on a work holiday, I was going to have myself a good time and fuck what people thought.

It was during one trip to the bar that I encountered a man that seemed very out of place at the gathering. He was short and rounded, about forty years old, and dressed in a pair of ratty blue jean shorts and a tattered T-shirt. He held a whispered conversation with the bartender and I heard a distinct Russian accent drifting over, though I could not make out the words. He must be one of the pyrotechnicians, I figured. I thought briefly of striking up a conversation with him. After all, how often does one get a chance to talk to an actual fireworks lighter? I was pretty sure he would be more interesting to talk to than anyone else at the party. But then the whispered conversation with the bartender took on the tone of negotiation. They bantered back and forth for a few minutes and then some money exchanged hands, moving from the Ukrainian's to the bartender's. After that a bottle of expensive vodka and a bucket of ice changed hands, this time moving in the opposite direction. The Ukrainian made a hasty exit, disappearing in the direction of the maintenance shacks near the back of the winery.

The bartender saw that I had witnessed this and paled a little.

"Don't worry," I told him, setting my empty glass down. "I didn't see a thing."

"Thanks," he said gratefully, filling me up with a fresh whiskey sour and going heavy on the whiskey. "Just making a few extra bucks on Mr. Remington, you know? You accountants are lousy tippers."

"Yep," I agreed, tossing a buck into his jar. "Never bartend at a function where CPA's are the guests. We're the cheapest motherfuckers on Earth."

We had a laugh about that and I took my drink and disappeared. Later, when I went to the restroom near the rear of the winery I heard laughter and excited Russian phrases drifting from the maintenance shack. It seemed that they were well into the vodka they had acquired. More power to them. I never considered for a minute that it might not be a good idea to supply men who were going to be lighting off airborne explosives with alcohol. Apparently, neither did the bartender.

It was on my sixth or seventh trip to the bar, as the steaks and chicken were being cooked on the barbeque and the bowls of potato salad were being hefted onto the serving table, that I found myself standing next to Suzanne Remington. She was a bit unsteady on her feet and her face was a little flushed. The hem of her summer dress was just above her knees and she wore no nylons. I took a moment to admire her legs, which were toned and very shapely. I couldn't believe that old man Remington wanted to trade her in. She was a definite hottie. If she had been mine, I would've been banging her every night and twice on Sunday.

"You're... Jeff, right?" she asked me as we waited for the bartender to produce our fresh drinks. "The one who came by himself?"

"That's me," I confirmed. "This is a really nice party you've thrown."

She shrugged a little, giving a cynical look. "The best part are the drinks," she said. "We have an absolutely wonderful bartender, don't we?"

"I'll have to agree with you there," I said.

She looked me up and down for a moment. "You seem a little different than the rest of the guys. You've been over here to the bar as much as Stephen and I. Aren't you afraid he'll think badly of you?"

I hesitated for a moment before answering, wondering what her intentions were in asking me that. She didn't seem to be grilling me, she just seemed pleasantly curious. I didn't sense that she was going to go report what I said to her better half. "Well," I finally said, "when you're divorced and paying alimony and child support, you take all the free drinks you can get your hands on. Who knows when you're going to get offered some more?"

She smiled, a genuine smile and not the phony hostess smile she had offered before. "You're refreshing," she told me. "An accountant with a sense of humor. I thought you had to turn that in when you graduated."

"Not when you graduate," I said. "Just when you get hired at BR&D. But I put a claim check on mine and I take it out with me once in a while. Today seemed a good day."

"Careful," she said playfully, "don't let Stevie hear you badmouthing the company. You might have to put in another two years before they make you partner."

"That's another 8000 hours of work," I said reflectively. "If I sing the company song during the fireworks show do you think that'll make up for it?"

"Only if you do it in red, white, and blue underwear," she told me with a giggle.

We got our drinks and she walked back to the main part of the party with me. Her husband was currently on the other side of the crowd, regaling a few of the hard-core brownnosers with tales of his climb up the fabled ladder. His voice was loud and drunken and even over the babble of dozens of other conversations we could hear a few words drifting over. Remington was definitely one of those people that loved to hear himself talk.

Suzanne stayed next to me and we talked, our conversation taking in more neutral topics. We discovered a mutual fondness for exercising and we spent a few minutes talking of our favorite techniques for engaging in that activity. As I had suspected, she employed a personal trainer who came to her house three days a week to supervise her workouts in the fully equipped gym on the bottom floor of her house.

"He's a gorgeous hunk," she told me, "right out of a Chippendale calendar, but he's as queer as a three-dollar bill." She shook her head in amusement. "That's what I get for letting Stevie pick the trainer for me I guess."

"He's just trying to keep the competition away," I said, and then, thanks to the alcohol coursing through my body, I added: "Can't say that I blame him, either." I felt a little burst of adrenaline as I realized that I'd made a half-assed pass at my boss's wife, but it eased up when I saw her smile instead of frown.

"You're sweet," she said, tapping my arm with her hand. "But I'd rather have someone training me who liked to look at me instead of you, you know what I mean?"

"How much does the boss pay for that?" I asked her. "Maybe I can take a shot at it?"

She giggled, slapping at my arm again. "You're a flirt," she told me, not seeming to mind in the least. "I can't believe you couldn't get a date."

"Strange but true," I said, looking at her glass. "Would you like another drink?"

"I'd love one," she told me.

Dinner was served a few minutes later. Suzanne went back to sit with her husband while I joined a group on the other side of the gathering. We sat at picnic tables and munched on the food and the conversations about mergers and acquisitions and tax-free municipals went on and on. A few people gave me thinly veiled warnings that maybe I was drinking a little too much. A few gave me more specific ones.

"You better be cool Jeff," Mike Wilmington said softly. "Remington might be drunk but he sees everything."

"I'm cool," I assured him. "Alcohol consumption was what I majored in at CSUH. I can handle it."

"Shit," scoffed Wilmington, who was the closest thing I had to a friend at the firm. "You can't handle anything. You were flirting with his wife man. His wife!"

"We were just talking," I protested. "Is there any law against that?"

"There is if you want to keep working here," he hissed. "Don't be stupid. Lay off the booze and stay away from his piece. This is a company function, remember? It's not a kegger behind the frat house."

"I'll take that under advisement," I promised him.

And I did, deciding that he was probably right and that my judgment just might be a tad bit affected by the alcohol. I vowed to stay away from Mrs. Remington and be a good little accountant, worthy of the great BR&D name.

My vow lasted until shortly after the dinner plates were cleaned up and carted away. The band took the stage and began belting out classic rock and roll tunes from the 70s and 80s. Couples formed up in the area that had been designated as a dance floor and began to move to the beat. That was when Suzanne came over to me and asked me to dance.

"Sure," I told her, casting a quick glance over at Mr. Remington. He was out in the dance area as well, moving and grinding with the young girlfriend of Aaron Rivers. "Let's do it."

The song was Too Much Time On My Hands, a good beat to dance to. We moved our hips and shoulders amid the other couples and Suzanne's face lit up with a pleasant smile.

"You're pretty good at this," she told me.

"My ex-wife and I used to go out dancing a lot when we were first married," I replied.

"Let me guess," she said. "It was one of the things that she missed when you gave your soul to the company, right?"

"You must be psychic," I answered.

"Nope," she said, "I'm just a corporate wife too, from a long line of them."

The next song was That Smell and it was followed by 867-5309 Jenny. Suzanne and I stayed together out on the dance floor through both of them, moving our bodies and sweating a little in the summer heat. A few times during our motions our hands or our hips came into contact with each other. Each time this occurred it was like a spark of electricity had fired, like some charge that had been building had been allowed to ground. Those brief touches of her flesh, of her body against mine were making me randy, my lust directed at her tight body. I could tell that I was having a similar effect on her. By the time the band struck up Everybody Wants You the contacts were more frequent and no longer accidental. I was also sporting a respectable semi-erection in my khaki shorts.

Of course our antics did not go unnoticed by the other members of the party. I can't even begin to count the number of disapproving and scandalous glares I received from my peers and their dates. I ignored them for the most part, even the throat-cutting gestures that Mike Wilmington was sending at me. The only time I became seriously worried was when Suzanne and I, both sweaty and breathing heavy from the dancing, took a break to get a drink and rest for a few moments. It was then that Mr. Remington came over and pulled me aside.

Uh oh, I thought worriedly as he took me out of earshot. Now I've gone and done it. But the conversation that ensued was not at all what I was expecting.

"Jim," he said, his breath strong with the odor of scotch, "I notice you've been dancing with my wife quite a bit."

"It's Jeff sir," I said slowly.

"Whatever," he said dismissively. He looked around, seeing if anyone was in earshot and then leaned in conspiratorially. "I really appreciate what you're doing."

I wondered for a moment if I'd heard him correctly. "You do?"

He nodded. "Of course," he nearly whispered. "I see where you're coming from, and let me be the first to tell you that I appreciate it."

"You do?" I repeated, trying to keep my mouth from dropping open.

"Hell yes," he said. "There's a cornucopia of young poon at this place tonight, just ripe for the picking. It's very decent of you to keep the old ball and chain occupied for me while I go... you know... fishing." He winked at me. "Keep up the good work son. You keep taking care of the boss man like this and you'll be up for partner in no time. No time I tell you." With that he clapped me on the shoulder as a father would a son and then headed back for the crowd.

I stared after him, flabbergasted. He actually thought I was dancing with his wife so that he could hit on the other accountant's wives and girlfriends. He had actually thanked me for doing it. Fucking amazing.

The band struck up Burning For You. I walked over to Suzanne and asked her to dance again. She smiled knowingly at me and a moment later we were back on the dance floor.

"Okay, I'm going to be psychic again," she said as we held hands and moved to the music. "He told you to keep me entertained so he could try his luck with the younger ladies in the crowd, right?"

"My, you seem to have a shallow opinion of your husband," I replied, refusing to answer her.

She scoffed a little. "You reap what you sew in this life," she said. "I stole him away from his first wife when I was twenty-four. She was thirty-three at the time. I have no illusions about my fate as Mrs. Remington. Stevie doesn't like them any older than mid-thirties. In fact, the older that he gets, the younger he seems to like them."

"Doesn't that bother you?" I asked her.

She shrugged, managing to make it to the time of the music. "Why should it? Do you think I married him because I was in love with him? I married him because he's rich. When he tosses me aside I'll be well taken care of. My lawyer insisted upon it in the pre-nup. Of course his lawyer tried to balk at it but we insisted and eventually wore them down."

I looked at her pointedly. "You had a lawyer conference just to get married to him?" I asked.

She shrugged again. "That's life in the upper crust for you. Romantic, isn't it?"

"It makes my heart melt," I told her, causing both of us to laugh.

We danced and danced, working our way through two or three more songs. As we moved our way across the dance area, our hands together, our legs and hips occasionally making brief, exciting contact, I happened to glance towards the duck pond a few times. I saw the four Ukrainians that made up the pyrotechnic team loading boxes into a rowboat that was resting on the shore. Even from a hundred yards away I could see the high explosive label on the side of the boxes. The Ukrainians themselves seemed a bit unsteady on their feet as they made first one then two then three trips across the water to the island, dropping off the boxes each time. They carried the boxes to the middle of the island, where the palm trees and the hedges were the thickest.

"Has Mr. Remington ever contracted with these people for a fireworks show before?" I asked Suzanne, my voice a little breathless from the exertion.

"No," she said, breathing a little hard herself. "He's never arranged for a fireworks show before. He thought it would impress everyone, give them something they've never seen at a party before. Why do you ask?"

"Oh... no reason," I said dismissively, casting another glance at the Ukrainians, noting that one of them had actually tripped over his own feet and fallen down while carrying one of the boxes. "No reason at all."

The sun gradually dipped below the horizon, imparting first an inky twilight upon the landscape and then a humid darkness. Mosquitoes, which were particularly heavy this season thanks to a wet winter without many frosts, made their appearance as well, feasting on the legs and arms of the guests. The temperature dropped from the low nineties to the low eighties and then even further when a pleasant breeze kicked up from the south. The guests of Mr. Remington actually seemed to loosen up a bit with the coming of the night, making more frequent trips to the bar and coming out to the dance floor in ever increasing numbers.

The band played on as the evening progressed and I continued to dance almost exclusively with Suzanne Remington, when we weren't hitting up the bar for more drinks that was. Finally a slow song was played - Waiting For A Girl Like You - and she and I found ourselves facing each other as the other couples held onto each other in intimate embraces. I took a glance over at Mr. Remington, seeing that he was still holding on to Aaron Rivers' girlfriend, who didn't, I might add, seem to be upset by his advances. I looked back at Suzanne and she held her arms out to me.

"I love the slow dances," she said. "Would you?"

"I'd be honored," I assured her.

I put my hands on her lower back and she put hers around my neck. We pulled together, our thighs touching lightly, her breasts pressing against my chest. I could feel the heat coming off of her skin from our exertions and could smell the pleasant, exciting odor of her perspiration filling my nose. My penis, which had pretty much behaved itself for most of the night, suddenly awakened and began to fill with blood.

"This is nice," Suzanne said dreamily, her chin resting on my shoulder as we swayed to the gentle beat. "Nobody's danced with me like this in years."

I pulled her a little tighter to me, unable to help myself, feeling the firmness of her skin beneath her dress, feeling her legs push a little harder into me. "It is," I agreed.

We didn't talk much more during the dance but we shared a certain sort of communication nonetheless, a communication that was dangerous on a primal level. She snuggled her head up against my neck, her chin resting on my shoulder. I could feel the moist warmth of her breath against my skin, a sensation that was far from unpleasant. Her arms tightened up around my neck, her soft fingertips softly caressing me in a manner that could only be described as sensuous. She pulled in tighter, allowing me to feel the full press of her breasts against me. I could feel the weight of them, the softness of them, the feminine intimacy of them as they rubbed in gentle circles on my upper stomach. I could also feel the push of her soft thighs against mine, the whisper of her thin dress gliding up and down, back and forth. More blood rushed to my penis, turning it into a full-fledged hard-on that pushed insistently into her stomach.

"Mmmmm," I heard her whisper in my ear, her voice with a tremor of excitement in it, "it feels like you're enjoying the dance as much as I am."

"I'm sorry," I said, a little bit of sobriety coming back to me, and with it, nervous embarrassment. This was my boss's wife, I had to remind myself. This was madness. I tried to pull away a little bit but she wouldn't let me.

"No, no," she whispered, her lips just touching my ear lobe, just enough to leave a kiss of saliva on it. "Don't pull back. It's been so long since I've felt a man react like that to me, and I'm just drunk enough that it feels really good."

"But I don't think Mr. Remington would appreciate it very much," I whispered back.

"Then don't rub it against him and he'll never know," she told me, snuggling in even closer and giving a deliberate grind against my groin.

I almost groaned at the sensation. I stopped trying to pull away from her. It just felt too damn good to hold her in my arms, to feel her softness pressing into me. As the song played on the caresses on the back of my neck grew softer, more sensuous, and her slow grind against my erection continued until I was almost panting with desire for her. Had she been anyone else, I would have kissed her, just angled my jaw downward and put my lips to hers, but I restrained myself from this despite the fact that I suspected that was exactly what she wanted me to do.

Finally, to both my relief and my consternation, the song ended, forcing us to break apart. We did so with a certain reluctance. I looked around in the darkness at the other couples on the floor, who were also breaking apart from their own dances. I could sense the disapproval and the disbelief radiating from most of them at my blatant flirtation with Suzanne. Apparently our indiscretion had not gone unnoticed. But Mr. Remington, in whose name the disapproval was being registered, remained oblivious and uncaring. He was escorting Rivers' girlfriend over to the bar, his hand resting on her lower back, just above the swell of her shapely ass. No one seemed to be projecting hostile feelings at him for his indiscretion. Not even Aaron Rivers himself, who was standing over by the food table talking to one of the other accountants. An interesting bit of hypocrisy on my colleague's part I thought bitterly.