Part 1

The Sundollars Coffee chain liked to put up signs touting how the Wall Street Journal and several other business-oriented publications considered them one of the world's best employers to work for. Mark Grogan was not exactly sure what factors these publications used in order to make this determination but he was pretty sure they had never asked the peons who actually worked the counters. Granted, Sundollars was a few steps above the fast food sweatshops he did time in back in high school - the pace was a little slower and the pay was a little better - but they did not offer him medical or dental benefits, they did not match funds for the 401k, and the only real opportunity for advancement was to assistant manager, which meant he would be salaried and forced to come in far beyond his normal working hours with no additional hourly pay. He had been there for almost two years now and could not quite bring himself to accept that promotion though they repeated the offer at least once every quarter. Working at Sundollars was a McJob, just like any other. It was a means to get him through college and, as far as that went, it fit the bill rather nicely. He came in four mornings a week at 6:00 AM and worked until 10:30, which left him just enough time to get to the California State University at Heritage Campus where he was carrying eighteen units a semester towards a Criminal Justice degree.

One of the interesting things about working at Sundollars was the regular customers. Since they were dealing in what was, after all, a legal addictive drug, the same people came in every day at about the same time. Most of them were bleary-eyed and anxious to get their morning fix. The Sundollars employees who worked the same shift for any length of time got to know them after awhile - at least as far as first names and choice of drinks went. An endless game between them was speculation on the other, hidden details of their customers' lives.

It was this game that Mark and Cindy Smith, the eighteen year old counter girl he had started dating a few weeks ago, were playing one morning during the 7 to 8 AM rush.

"Here comes Stan and Marla," Cindy whispered to him as they stood side by side behind the counter. Mark was taking orders and Cindy was filling them, operating the espresso and milk machine with the absent expertise that comes with repetition.

Mark looked up and saw the couple she was referring to just parking their cars outside. Stan was a straight coffee man. He was a nerdy-looking guy with a thin mustache and thick, horned rim glasses. He drove a mini-van full of car seats and had a gold wedding band on his left ring finger. Marla was a frappachino girl. She was young, petite, and liked to dress in short skirts and tight tops. She drove a Mustang and had no wedding or engagement ring. As was usually the case, they parked side by side, arriving within seconds of each other, and then met near the rear of their vehicles for several seconds of tight hugging, intensive kissing, and whispered words of love and endearment.

"They're gonna get caught one of these days," Mark whispered back. "Mark my words. Someone who knows one or the other of them will just happen by and see them making out and the next thing you know, someone will call his wife."

"You don't know that they're having an affair," Cindy protested. "Maybe they're actually married to each other and she just lost her ring or something."

Mark gave her the look that one gives a hopelessly naive person - which, he was coming to find out, she actually was. "Have you ever seen married people making out in public like that? Every day?"

"Well... no," she admitted. "But maybe they're just really in love. It can happen." She looked around, making sure no customers were in earshot. "After all, you make out with me in public, don't you?"

"Yes, I do," he confirmed, and that was true. They had had an extended session of tongue-lashing and finger groping just the previous night while at the movies. Of course, he had then gone home with a raging case of blue balls since she had been unwilling to progress their passion to the point of actually allowing him to orgasm in some way, shape, or form. "But we're not married. By the time you get married, you've gotten all of your making out in public out of your system.

"Is that so?" she said, half glaring, half joking. "Is that based on the wisdom you've acquired in your twenty years of life and love?"

"Maybe you're right," he conceded, though he didn't think so at all. He was just trying to head off an argument before she could get one started. It was true he didn't have all that much experience with the opposite sex, but he had enough. He had been laid ten or fifteen times with four different girls since that first time with Allison Michaels on his parent's couch when he was sixteen. If there was one thing he'd learned it was that sex was overrated. Sure, nailing a girl felt better than jacking off, but only barely. It was certainly not the sublime, exquisite experience that everyone liked to make it out to be.

Stan and Marla came in and ordered their respective drinks. Once delivered, they sat at one of the tables near the door where they would spend the next fifteen minutes holding hands and making googly eyes at each other. Coming in right behind them was Doreen, known in conversation as the flower lady. She was an eccentric older lady, perhaps fifty years old, who always arrived on foot carrying a bouquet of fresh cut daisies with her. She wore black lipstick, black fingernail polish, and talked to no one except to give her order each morning. Her drink of choice was house coffee with two shots of espresso in it - enough caffeine to wake the dead. Both Cindy and Mark suspected she was a schizophrenic being kept under control with medication.

"The usual, Doreen?" Mark asked her as she approached the counter.

"Yes," she mumbled, her voice barely audible, her head nodding rapidly.

While Cindy went about the task of revving up the already potent house brew into something that would power an internal combustion engine, Mark caught a flash of silver as a long, stylish car pulled up out front - a Jaguar XK8 convertible, to be exact. It was another regular. Taya, the Jag Lady.

Taya came in every morning within five minutes of 7:30. She was around forty years old, Mark guessed, well outside the range of what he usually looked at with an eye geared towards judging physical attractiveness - after all, his own mother was only forty-one - but there was no denying that Taya was something to look at. Short and compact, but well built, she sported a trim, firm-looking body equipped with an impressive set of natural-looking breasts that jiggled and bounced in a most appetizing way with each step she took. Her hair was light brown, and always fashionably styled; her face was smooth and unlined, despite her years. She enjoyed dressing in expensive yet revealing clothing. Her shirts and sweaters were designed to show off her smooth stomach with the diamond stud in her navel, and to accent her large boobs. She was always friendly and polite to the Sundollars employees who took her order and prepared her drink of choice each morning, but there was an air about her that she could be unpleasant if crossed, an unspoken demand for respect she thought was due her.

Mark's impression of her was that she was rich of course. That much was obvious by the fact that she drove a $75,000 car. Based on the wedding ring she had on her left hand - a ring containing a diamond of at least three carats - he knew she was married. He knew she had a job of some sort since she showed up at 7:30 AM each weekday morning. Beyond that, however, his impressions were mere speculation. He figured her husband was probably much older than her and the primary source of her considerable wealth. He also figured she worked at something she enjoyed for the enjoyment aspect in and of itself, instead of for financial reasons. He also knew he spent a lot more time speculating about her than he did any of his other customers. Why? He knew not. Maybe it was her car, which he would just love to drive on the open road somewhere. Or maybe it was her self-assured, experienced attitude. He had never really been attracted to older women - not since his junior high school days when he'd had the hots for Ms. Murchison, his English teacher - but there was something about Taya that seemed to call to him. Though he would never admit it to anyone, would barely even admit it to himself, more than one masturbation session in his bed late at night had been conducted with her face, her body, her breasts in mind.

Today she was wearing a pair of low-riding black slacks and a low-cut spaghetti strap top. Her impressive cleavage was displayed perhaps a little more than was usual and, as she raised her arms up to remove her purse from around her shoulder, the bottom of the top rode up, giving a brief flash of her sexy belly. Mark could not help but ogle a bit as she approached the counter.

"Good morning, Taya," he greeted, forcing himself to drag his eyes to her face. "A large, no whip mocha?"

"Yes, thank you," she said, a strange smirk on her face as she dug out a ten-dollar bill to pay for her purchase.

He wrote her name on one of the paper cups and set it next to Cindy. "Large no whip mocha for Taya," he told her.

Taya paid for her purchase, received her change, and then went to the corner of the room to await her order. While she waited, her eyes seemed to be taking in Mark's form a little more than usual. Was it just his imagination? And if not, what was the meaning of it? Before he could speculate too much on this subject, another regular came in - John, a businessman who was perpetually on his cellular phone. While Mark took John's order and rung him up, Cindy handed Taya her mocha. She thanked Cindy politely and headed for the door. As she pulled out in her silver Jag, Mark took one last look at her and then let her out of his head for the rest of the day.

On the following Friday night, Cindy let him fuck her. His parents were out of town for the weekend, and had taken his younger sister with them. He brought Cindy over and put the latest new-release chick-flick on the DVD player. It had the desired effect and soon they were making out on the couch. Gradually his hand worked its way under her blouse onto her firm, delectable teenaged tits. That led to the removal of her shirt and his mouth upon her nipples. Soon after that, he was kissing his way down her stomach, hoping to get his lips on her blonde vulva. She allowed him to open her pants but the moment he made a move to pull them down she stopped him.

"Let's go up to your bedroom," she suggested.

They went up and she undressed demurely, baring herself and lying on his bed. She was as beautiful as he'd always imagined she would be and his own clothes soon joined hers in a heap on the floor. He tried again to put his face between her legs but she pushed him away.

"Do you have a condom?" she asked.

"Yes," he said. Of course he had a condom. He had an entire fucking box of them in his nightstand in addition to the two he carried in his wallet.

"Put it on," she demanded. "Do it to me."

"Don't you want me to... you know... kiss you... down there?"

"No," she said, feigning uncontrolled passion and doing a poor job of it. "Just do it to me. I want it."

He did it to her, rolling the condom on his hard-on and climbing atop her in the missionary position. She spread her legs for him and he slid inside. She was tight and wet and the friction was enjoyable as he thrust within her, but it was nothing spectacular. She hardly moved during the whole thing. She hardly made a sound. Her hands stroked his back a little, but that was about it. He pounded away at her for nearly ten minutes before having a weak, semi-satisfying orgasm and filling the condom with his sperm. By the time he returned from flushing it, she was already dressed again.

"That was great," she told him, checking her make-up in the mirror. "Let's go watch the rest of the movie now."

The following Monday Mark was putting the wire chairs and portable tables on the patio outside Sundollars when the silver Jag pulled up. Taya stepped out, this time wearing a pair of turquoise shorts and a matching spaghetti-strap top. As usual, her impressive breasts were practically falling out.

"Good morning, Taya," he greeted, his eyes flitting between her bare legs and her bare cleavage before settling on her face.

"Yes it is," she told him. "A beautiful morning. Are you working hard?"

"Always," he assured her.

She smiled, her eyes seeming to linger on him a little longer than usual, and then she turned and went inside. While she was getting her mocha, he pulled another table into position and arranged the chairs next to it. As he finished this task, he found himself standing near the front of Taya's car. He was close enough that he could hear the ticking of the cooling engine and feel the heat radiating from it. This was the closest he had ever been to her car, and he took a moment to admire it. The silver paint was glossy, shining with the brilliance that only a once-a-week coat of wax could produce. There was not so much as a water drop visible, neither on the paint nor on the windshield, nor even the trademark hood ornament. He resisted the urge to reach out and touch it, to feel its smoothness, to palpate this symbol of class and success.

"You like my car, do you?" a voice from behind him enquired.

Startled, he turned around to find himself looking into Taya's face. There was a look of amusement there. "Uh... yeah," he said. "I hope you don't mind me checking it out. It's very nice."

"I don't mind at all," she said, with just a hint of teasing in her eyes. "I spend a lot of time keeping it looking nice just so young handsome guys like yourself will check it out. You know what I mean?"

"Uh... yeah," he said slowly. There seemed to be a double meaning to her words but he wasn't experienced enough with the opposite sex to be sure.

"You like to drive?" she asked him.

"Drive? Uh... yeah, sure."

"You ever drive anything like this before?"

He shook his head. "This is the closest I've ever even been to one," he told her.

"Well I highly recommend it," she said, a pouty smile forming on her lips. "You haven't driven until you've slipped into something like this, know what I mean?"

"Uh... yeah," he said doubtfully. She hadn't even looked at the car when she'd said that. It almost seemed like she was talking about... well, about something else entirely.

She pulled her keys out and clicked the unlock button. "You have a nice day now," she told him saucily. With that, she opened up the car door. As she leaned in to set her coffee down in the holder between the seats, the rear of her shorts rode up considerably, allowing him a brief glimpse of the bottom of her ass cheeks. They were smooth and sexy -looking, with no tan lines visible. She seemed to hold the position longer than was necessary and then finally slipped into the car. She fired it up, and backed out into the parking lot. With one last wave, one last mysterious smile, she drove away to wherever it was she went each day.

Over the next two weeks, Mark fucked Cindy two more times. Once in the back of his car after a Saturday night date, and once at Cindy's house while her parents were at work. In both instances, it was pretty much the same as the first time. They made out, groped each other for a bit, and then he put a condom on and climbed aboard, thrusting within her barely-moving body until he came. His conviction that sex was the most overrated thing on the planet continued to grow.

As luck would have it, Taya showed up again one morning just as he was putting the patio furniture out for the day. On this day, she was wearing a short skirt that came to mid thigh, and the inevitable spaghetti strap top. Her breasts, as usual, were practically falling out. She gave him her smile as she approached him but instead of walking by, she stopped to talk.