Chapter 9

Ashley got onto her tiptoes to send Harper off with a kiss. "I love you, Harper, but I'm glad you're going this damn trip. I need to be able to walk when I go to that horrid excuse for a meet and greet next week."

Harper's ever rising desire had taken a toll on Ashley. She was sore from the waist down and there were bite marks on her shoulders and breasts. He didn't know exactly why he'd been so rough lately, but he had to admit that it turned him on and got him off harder than he'd thought possible. Harper knew it secretly turned Ashley on a bit too. Last night she had ridden him till she collapsed onto his chest from sheer fatigue.

"I love you too, Ash. See you in a week, baby."

J.S. Thompson, the President of the sales division, had personally asked that Harper be among those to man the Chrion Medical booth at the Medical Design & Technology West trade show in Anaheim. This was a big one that could expect to attract around ten thousand people all eying the latest in medical devices and technology. Stevens had delivered the news of Harper's inclusion gravely with unmistakable "don't fuck this up" undertones.

A short drive to the airport, a long wait in security, and Harper was on his way. Most of the other people from Chiron were upper executives with a few handpicked salespeople sprinkled in for variety. Stevens' uncle, the CEO, was on the trip, as was Thompson himself. Harper had never met either one of them, but it was heartening that Thompson had personally selected him.

He met up with the rest of the delegation at the hotel. Stevens' uncle looked much like his nephew, but older and with more than a little gray scattered about his hair. Thompson, however, was a complete surprise. He was purported to be one of the oldest people working in the pantheon of upper executives and getting very close to 70. Broad at the shoulder and with a full head of iron gray hair, he walked with a straight back and moved like a man just into his early fifties. It was he who took charge at the Anaheim convention center and coordinated the finishing touches to the booth and demo products they had available. Shortly before the doors were set to open and allow the guests in to start perusing the booths and merchandise, Thompson approached Harper and maneuvered him into a quiet corner.

"You're working under that prick Charles Stevens, right?" Thompson's voice was a little gruff, but his tone was kindly. Probably as kindly as it ever got. He sounded more like a general used to commanding an army consisting solely of fuck ups than a business executive.

Harper balked. "Yeah uh. Yes. I'm in his office."

Thompson frowned. "Maybe prick is a little harsh. He might make a decent leader after he slugs it out in the trenches a little longer. I'm not promoting him till he learns the ropes. Anyhow, your old boss Jeremy Johnson had some really good things to say about you. Said you showed promise."

Harper could do nothing but nod dumbly as he tried to ferret out the reason for this unexpected exchange.

Thompson barreled on heedless of Harper's confusion. "Listen son, you keep up the good work. Do some floor work and move some product out here and maybe we'll talk again soon." The older man left as soon as he'd offered Harper a wink and a handshake to begin moving about the booth with more instructions. The man was a force of nature both sudden and implacable. The conversation had left Harper a bit rudderless.

Hours passed by in a blur. After the initial rush of people into the convention center, the crowd settled down into a steady stream of people moving this way and that to try to see as many of the booths as possible during the first day. Harper was tempted just to people watch; to search out any attractive female form he could find, but he forced himself to center his mind on his business. That was what he was here for not idle fantasies of skirt chasing. He was scanning the crowds randomly and approaching those who showed the slightest interest in his company's booth when he spotted Tim Stockman dogging a group of people making their way toward him. The Phoenix Medical Technologies booth was nowhere near here according to the map Harper had glanced at earlier. Stockman had been after them a while.

The body language of the group sang out discomfort and an intense urge to escape, but Tim Stockman, an overweight vulture in a tan suit, western tie and a ridiculous cowboy hat, wasn't giving up without a fight. His sales style, if it could be called that, was to merely batter his customers until they relented and wrote him a check. What was so awful about it is that it tended to work more often than not. It was one of life's biggest mysteries.

Harper strode out to meet the group. As he got closer he managed to overhear Stockman shouting in some poor man's ear.

"I can get you a great deal on a used Fresenius 2008 series! It's a hell of a workhorse, I tell ya. It's been refurbished and comes with an extended warranty."

Ah. Dialysis machines. Time to step in. "If you all are looking for a dialysis machine, maybe I can help you out," he said as he finally closed the distance. "I've got a replica of a brand new unit in here that I can explain to you."

Tim gave Harper a look that could curdle milk as the group allowed themselves to be ushered into Chiron's tent. Harper didn't even notice when the wannabe cowboy left after he began explaining the utility of the unit he was selling.

"This compartment houses the optional bio-spleen. Without any antibiotics or retrovirals whatsoever it can scrub the blood clean of nasty things from HIV to MRSA. Greatly reduces the amount of drugs you need to pump into your patients among other things and increases the likelyhood of a positive outcome in cases of severe sepsis."

As he regaled the contingent with the virtues of his device, all from memory, and angled them toward someone who could go over the particulars of their purchase, Harper noticed Thompson standing near the entrance of the booth nod at him in approval. It felt like he'd passed a test of some sort.

Coming back to a dark house was sad in some ineffable way Harper couldn't quite express. After spending a dull Saturday alone without even work to occupy him he missed Ashley even more keenly than before. Her light brown curls, warm brown eyes, easy laugh and delicious, tan thighs...

Harper shook his head to clear his thoughts. More and more often he was falling into these gaps in time where peculiarly vivid sexual fantasies waited. And beckoned. He had to find something active to take up his time or else he might end up plopping down in front of a computer and frittering most of a day away clicking from one porn site to the next. Harper knew he could now spend hours doing that and it wouldn't be enough. He'd already made that mistake.

Guess the house could always use a little cleaning, he thought sullenly. It always does.

After the rest of the weekend and a Monday evening of work after he left the office, the house was spotless. He could expect Ashley to get home any minute now was glad he'd made the effort. Hopefully, she'd step through the door ... and out of her clothes. With her conference added onto the time he'd spent in Anaheim, it had been a full week since Harper had gotten any and it was driving him crazy. Even by the end of the trade show, a lot of those women were looking pretty good. He felt 17 years old; anxious and fidgety with frustrated desire, waiting for a girl who'd promised to go all the way.

The door opened and an obviously downtrodden Ashley straggled in. Well, this isn't good. Harper tried to put on a good face and walked into the foyer to welcome his newly returned bride. Ashley grunted something unintelligible, dodged his embrace and fell face first onto the couch. She said something into the cushions, but Harper couldn't make it out. He moved closer and put his ear close to her mouth. "I need a beer," she grumbled.

Fuck. Harper, with a all the good grace he could muster, got one for both of them from the fridge and listened as she related how she had spent her last nightmarish couple of days. Apparently she'd come back with an ample supply of horror stories from this past conference.

She paused to take another pull of beer. "And then Dr. Gupta, who'd been slamming down martinis like he was James fucking Bond, starts getting handsy. I had to threaten him with a few broken fingers to get him to quit feeling me up," she complained punctuating that last bit with an unfeigned shiver. Ashley had unbuttoned the top of her blouse to get more comfortable, exposing a hint of lacy bra and cleavage. "Oh! Oh. And then there was that old goat Dr. Goldstein. Wasn't he in rare form. He was telling me the most disgusting things, Harper. He..."

Harper's mind was hard at work imagining ways to get Ashley's clothes off and her onto his cock. Bouncing up and down, her apple sized breasts jiggling in his face and his length sweetly filling her wet cunt as she threw her head back in ecstasy. The sensations of him pushing into her as deeply as he could and filling her with his spunk. Her voice droned on somewhere outside his perception until he realized she had asked him something and was expecting an answer.

"Uh. What'd you say, Ash?" he asked with a start.

"I asked: what's for dinner? I'm dead on my feet and I haven't eaten a good meal in days. The best things that hotel served were all alcoholic."

Later, in bed, Harper had tried putting the moves on his wife and found himself totally rebuffed.

"Harp, c'mon. Lemme alone. I'm exhausted." With that last comment, she rolled over onto her side and was asleep in minutes.