Chapter 39

Rob sauntered into the office with a jaunty stride, whistling a Christmas carol of all things. Jessica was standing by the office printer, and she looked up from the print job she was waiting for to see his good mood.

"If I didn't know better," she snarked, "I'd say you're a man who just got his ashes hauled." He glanced at her with a shit-eating grin. "Oh, good grief!" she whispered. "You did, didn't you?"

He continued on toward his office, ignoring her hissed pleas for sordid details. When he got to his office, he noticed some of his furniture had gone missing and there were empty boxes sitting on his desk. Bob walked in behind him and clapped him on the shoulder.

"Well, son, today's the day," he proclaimed warmly. "Ready for your new office?"

Rob looked around the office and realized there was nothing there he was particularly attached to. It had been all about the work, and his old office environment reflected that. Things would have to be different now, and he'd need to keep his eye on the presentation of his surroundings. Maybe some plants...

He and Bob walked to the new office. The movers had shown up early and all the new furniture was scattered about inside, awaiting his pleasure. There were two strapping young lads idling about who were quickly put to work arranging things to Rob's taste, with advice from Bob on positioning for effect. Marge wandered in with Brenda in tow, and she suggested Rob get some neutral paintings for the walls. When Rob asked about plants, Brenda asked if he would leave it to her, and he readily agreed.

Rob spent the rest of his morning moving stuff out of his old office, taking breaks to help out on the floor as needed.

Bob took him to lunch, with Brenda and Marge invited to join them, and Jessica tagging along. When she was asked about that, she said, "Fun things seem to happen around Rob these days. I just want to be there when they do." Since no one objected, she was extended a belated invitation.

Dawn came in with her tagalong to pick up lunch for the crew at her office. While the girl went on to the counter, Dawn stopped by the table to say hi to everyone. She gave Rob a light kiss on the lips, blushing when Jessica hooted.

"Thank you for the other night, Rob," she said with a devilish gleam in her eyes. "I had a great time."

Jessica's eyes widened, thinking she'd found the source of his earlier good mood. Brenda's eyes widened too, but for a different reason. She thought she recognized a sister submissive, and it looked to her as though she was tweaking her dom.

Continuing, Dawn said, "Be sure to tell Ellie I said thanks, too."

If Jessica's eyes had gotten any larger, they might have fallen out of her head. She appeared to be choking on her food, so Bob patted her on the back. She waved him off.

Rob opted not to correct her about 'Ellie' just now, but he figured he'd better do it before she tried it out on Elaina.

Dawn said good-bye to everybody and went over to sign the slip. As she was passing the table on her way out, Brenda called her over.

"It's my understanding that you're a manager in your office. Why are you picking up lunch instead of some gofer?" she asked curiously.

"That's simple, actually," she replied. "I'm the most junior manager authorized to use the office credit card." She smiled and waved as she went on her way.

Rob's crew all got back to the office on time and headed off to their respective tasks. Rob made one more pass through his old office just to be sure he hadn't missed anything, then he grabbed his cloak and jacket and left the office for the last time as its occupant. From now on, he would be a visitor.

He found a set of hooks on the wall behind the door as well as a shiny new coat rack standing in the opposite corner. He figured the wall hooks were for him since they would generally be out of sight while the door was open; the coat rack was for visitors and clients. He sat in his chair for the first time as the new manager and leaned back with his hands behind his head, a satisfied grin on his face. After a few minutes of idle contemplation, he stood up and got back to work, inspiring his crew to stretch their metaphorical muscles.

Bob tracked him down to let him know to expect his first client meeting on Thursday, then handed him the paperwork to go along with it. Rob leafed through the file and saw it was a simple matter of handing off the case to the client. He stuck it in his file holder and went about his business.

Rob got home that evening anticipating dinner, and he wasn't disappointed. He knew was getting spoiled by her attentions, and told her as much, but she shrugged it off, saying he would pay her back in other ways. Hearing that brought another thought to mind.

"When was the last time you fed?" he asked. He'd noticed that she was warm when he kissed her at the door.

"Last week while I was out patrolling," she replied, frowning when she caught the implications. "I'm still warm. I can feel it."

They discussed it while he ate dinner, unable to arrive at a satisfactory conclusion.

"Look," Rob finally said, "You told me back when we first started experimenting that you could 'feel' when your body was processing blood. How does your body feel to you right now?"

She closed her eyes in concentration while she considered his thought. They popped open suddenly and she emitted a startled "Oh!"

"What?" Rob asked, worried. "What is it?"

"I still have blood in me," she whispered wonderingly. "I haven't processed all the blood from last time."

"You haven't lost anything, have you?" he asked, deeply concerned. "Are you feeling weaker or slower?"

In lieu of an answer, she snapped a hand at him, touching his nose and retreating before he could blink. The one thing they had both noticed was that when she moved, his hand had moved to block ... and had nearly reached its goal.

"Wow, that was quick – for a human," she commented. "But as you can see, nothing's changed. I feel as fit as ever."

"Your body's adapting to famine," he said. "It keeping reserves against lean times. As long as you don't 'starve' yourself, you should be fine."

"Then I'll really only need to feed for the pleasure of it," she purred to him. "I think I like that idea. I'll never have to kill to survive again as long as I have you."

"And that's the secret to hiding a vampire," he said, speaking sonorously. "Keep your friends close and your lovers closer; eat your enemies."

"You know," she said coquettishly, "I am feeling a mite peckish. Know where a girl might get a bite?"

They scurried off to the bedroom where they enjoyed the give and take of lovers, with a small twist to the taking.

Work was simply work on Wednesday. Following Bob's leadership example guided Rob in the way of being a manager the others could respect, with his expertise in the field easing the process.

He went to lunch hoping to see Dawn, but a different person came in this time with Dawn's usual tagalong. The tagalong gave him a finger-wave of recognition, but otherwise minded her business, carrying the box of food when they left.

While he was eating, he got a call from his mother saying she wouldn't be coming for lunch this week. They chatted for a while about what was going on in their lives, his mother getting in a dig about Dawn, then they said their good-byes.

Rob felt a little funny sitting there alone. When he thought back to all the times he sat alone at his desk for lunch, he laughed at himself and got on with stoking the furnace.

The day ended well, with several of the group beginning to get a grasp of how to spot the more cleverly crooked bookkeepers.

"You have to stop thinking of how you would do the books, and start thinking like a criminal. What would you do to steal the client's money?" Rob challenged the group at one point. "Once you find the discrepancy, you'll find it's the rule and not the exception, and you've found the beginning of the trail."

Several heads nodded at his words, while several others just looked puzzled. He knew it would be the ones with imagination that would get ahead in a field where imagination was generally the least valued quality.

He broke up the meeting, telling them all to have a good night. He went to his office and dragged out his gym bag from behind a filing cabinet then hustled to the street. He hadn't had the opportunity to leave early, so he knew he'd be cutting it close. He was pleasantly surprised when the cabbie got him to the gym on time.

He hurried through getting dressed and hustled out to the dojo, remembering to bow to the mat at the last second. Archer greeted him and, after Rob's warm up, had him demonstrate what he'd learned from the previous class. He was pleased to see there was some improvement, but not as much as he'd hoped.

"The fact that you can remember all those kata is astonishing. For most, it's upward of six weeks before they have them down like that, but you have them nailed. The thing here is that you should be able to do at least the first one at full speed without a problem. That's the one we use to encourage new students: because it's so easy. Yet you trip over it. That's what's frustrating."

Archer continued putting him through his paces, urging him to move faster, react quicker, frustrating them both when Rob stubbornly refused to show any real improvement.