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Rebuilding Harry Ch. 01

By: dozenjinx



Harry didn't like to be called Harold, and he knew his wife knew that, so he figured something was afoot when Patricia no longer referred to him as anything but Harold. They weren't youngsters any more, and he had begun to worry that this was about to turn into the sort of marriage that his parents had -- one of annoyed tolerance that lasted until death did them part. He was still crazy about Trish, and in its own way, it made sense that he would still be crazy about her while she was beginning to sour on him -- if this was what was happening -- since while he'd gained a few pounds around the middle and lost a little hair off the top, she'd just grown more beautiful with age. Triathlons were once her passion, and unlike Harry, who'd softened in the usual unsightly places men do, when fat returned to Trish's body it filled her out beautifully. She could wear dresses now that she never could before -- her form was too stringy and muscular then, whereas now she could fill out an hourglass outfit like nobody's business. But it was her face that had done him in when they first, and still did to this day. Her spirit was such that she always looked like she had a joke hidden in her green eyes and pursed lips -- so naturally red they didn't really need lipstick -- and while she never really showed that playfullness to him anymore, every now and then it would come out when she was reading something that amused her, or maybe a turn of a phrase in a movie on television that she found clever. If that weren't enough, her jet-black hair that she once kept trimmed for convenience's sake was now overflowing with curls, and they fell all about her frame, going down to the middle of her back and draped over her full breasts in a way that accentuated them deliciously. It was like having Aphrodite walking around the living room.

An Aphrodite that, unfortunately, was obviously losing interest in him.

He'd always trusted her, though, and even as he went about his usual routine of coming home late from the office, being grateful for the kiss on the cheek she'd let him give, getting up the next day only to find her off on one of her jogs she still went on, her weekend social events that he sometimes tagged along on, sometimes didn't... he thought that as boring a life it was, it was something he could count on. He'd started feeling that perhaps one of the reasons his parents stayed together in a loveless marriage was that there was something honourable in the commitment, something validating in knowing that you were sticking it out. It was a tough sell, one that got tougher whenever he would roll over in bed and curl up behind her, hoping to arouse her in some way the way he used to be able to, stroking the curves and dragging the satin slip upwards, only to have her lie completely still throughout. He'd done better than this in college before they met -- girls used to be openly flirtatious with him back then, and they wouldn't be shy in the bedroom if things ever progressed that far, which they frequently did. In high school he was successful in football, and thanks to his stardom he'd known the pleasure of intimacy with girls who were as desirable then as Trish was now. But in all that time, there wasn't a girl who ever filled him with the longings that Trish gave him, and he knew when he first saw her on the campus in his graduating year, that she had some ethereal hooks in him.

He didn't talk about it with his friends. Most of them had moved away from Hellespont since graduation, and he'd stayed in town to be with Trish, who loved the city and was never going to leave it. There were guys at the office he had beers with, but what could he tell them? They knew her from the picture on his desk, what did he have to complain about? She was his wife. Most of them had settled for unexciting relationships, and went to the strip club on boys' nights out to fantasize about women only marginally better-looking than what they had back home. But Harry was married to a goddess. He got compliments every time from people the first time they would see her, a sort of acknowlegment of the accomplishment of marrying such a creature. How could he respond to that with anything other than polite gratitude? How could he tell them that she was even more beautiful in person, that her body held in its curves the promise of untold carnal pleasure, and that there was little to compare the frustration of not being able to take her? His upward mobility in the office had ground to a halt since a reorganization a few years ago, and while he'd once wanted to be at least a vice-president more than anything, he'd throw it all away and work in the mail room if it meant he could trade that for a night of uninhibited fun with his own wife.

He didn't like talking much anyway. He could sell when he had to, but those instances had stopped coming around lately, and he found that he actually preferred silent moments. He was content with work, and he could learn to live with the barriers between him and Trish, if it meant that at the end of the day she was still there. He was learning to accept things as they were, and even when she'd started calling him Harold, even when there were new things coming up that took her away from the home, she was still there, and that was something he might be able to find solace in. Even if thoughts of what was in store for their future together made him vaguely uneasy, he found that if he just relaxed and shut them out of his head, he could quell the anxiety.

And then came Jack's message on the answering machine.

The night it happened, Harry walked into the living room after a night at the office, thrown his jacket over the sofa, and groaned a little with fatigue when he slouched on the sofa. Overtime was starting to become routine these days, and management had politely asked everybody to understand that as times were tough there wouldn't be any compensation for it for a little while. He'd gone through periods like that before with the company, and even though it was no fun, it was part of the price of having a decent job during a tough economic climate, when the alternative might be even worse.

"Trish?" he called from the comfort of the sofa. There was no answer, and when he strained he could make out the sound of the shower in the background. The living room was dark, and it felt as though the shadows were creeping up on him from every corner, a silent melody singing his eyes to sleep. As his breaths became deeper, and the room started to black out, he noticed the light on the answering machine. It wasn't blinking, but there was a message there, so he leaned over and hit the button to replay it.

And out came an unrecognizable, slightly gruff voice.

"Hey there, babe, it's me, Jack. Give me a phone call when you get back in, and we'll talk about Saturday."

With those few words, Harry jumped out of his impending slumber. Babe? Who was this guy to talk to Trish that way? He thought back... yes, the last time he checked, the answering machine clearly identified that people were reaching Mr. and Mrs. Harold Stevens. No ambiguity that he could think of. Nothing to suggest a situation where it was alright for a stranger to call one of the two babe without the other knowing something about it. And Harry knew no Jack.

"Relax..." Harry told himself, invoking his natural reflex whenever something happened that upset him. There'd been setbacks at the office, plus all those rejections from his wife, and he'd trained himself to calm down whenever the emotion welled up in him. "Relax..."

But images flooded his head that he couldn't fight back. Images of Trish being courted by another guy, and worse, images of Trish showing the guy favour, giving him that smile that Harry had once known from her, but which hadn't seen directed his way in years now. Images of Trish being flirted with by a faceless man at a party, in the shopping center, or out on one of her jobs. Images of her responding with flirtations of her own, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Images of the faceless man maneuvering the two of them to a secluded spot, of his hands on her, and worse still, of her not pushing the hands away.

He sat back down on the sofa and covered his head. As bad as it was, the sudden sensations he felt were surprising. It was as though he was already accepting the fact of his wife's infidelity, and an anger was growing in him. Worse than this man's phone message, was the fact that Trish had already listened to it and hadn't bothered erasing it. What the hell could that be about? Was this what things were coming to? Was she not even feeling a little bit modest about the fact that she was doing this to her husband...?

"Relax..." Harry told himself again, rubbing his palms into his eyes. The room was cold all of a sudden, and he felt like he was almost sobering up. There was no fact yet that she was doing anything to her husband. It was just an answering machine message. For all he knew it could be nothing, somebody whom she played tennis with on the weekend. Yes, maybe it even warranted a phone call. And maybe it was just the way they talked. Maybe she called him 'Babe' too - that thought almost brought a relapse of the anger - but it didn't have to mean anything...

He felt a sudden yearning for his friends from university, the last guys he'd known that he could talk to about something like this. Even then, he wasn't exactly the sort of person who confided in anybody about things, but for this he'd make an exception if he could.

He got up and went to the kitchen for a beer. Opening the fridge, he felt the coolness blow over him, and with a shiver things suddenly made a lot of sense. Yes, it could be an affair, or it could be nothing. But you're not going to find out tonight, are you? he asked himself, and then it became clear what he had to do. There was simply nothing he could do now, he told himself as he twisted off the cap and took a long swallow of beer. Nothing...

Nothing until Saturday.

From the background noise of the kitchen he could hear that the shower was still going.

Must be some shower, he thought wrily, and began to make his way up the hall to the bedroom, noiselessly, to peak inside. Hell, he didn't have to be quiet, it was his house, after all, but he'd been giving her a wide berth lately so there was no sense barging in on her. As he entered into the dimly-lit room he saw her clothes strewn on the floor, but nothing yet to suggest another man was there. The steam was coming from the bathroom quite heavily, though, and while Trish took impeccable care of herself she wasn't one for long showers, or so he'd long assumed, anyway. Obviously he didn't know his wife as well as he thought, but no matter. He tiptoed towards the bathroom that adjoined the bedroom, and just as his head was close enough to be able to peak through the crack, the water stopped. He paused in mid-step and listened as the shower curtains were pulled back, wondering what to do. His muscles locked up, and it wasn't until the door swung open and clocked him right on the forehead that his paralysis let up. He dropped the beer on the floor and gave a small yelp.

"Hey, what happened?" Trish asked as she came out. Harry tried to sort himself out, going for the beer at the same time as he pressed on his forehead, and finally he gave up and looked at her emerging silhouette. She was wearing nothing but a towel around her waist, and while her face was lost in the steam, her full breasts hovered there glistening in the light that came from the bathroom. He couldn't stop looking at her as she just stood there, staring at him.

Finally, she looked down at the floor, and the widening pool of beer soaking its way into the carpet. "Oh Harold," she said, "are you going to take care of that?"

"Oh, yeah Trish, sorry," he said.

"How was work?" she asked, as she walked past him and started to go through the day's closing routine of getting ready for bed. Those were likely some of the only words he'd hear from her that night, he knew, and he sighed.

"Fine, Trish, fine," he said as he set about cleaning up the beer with a towel from the bathroom.

For years, when the frustration of his wife's waning desire for him was too much, he would have his revenge in dreams. He hadn't had one for years, though, so when that night, when it came, the sensation was ferocious.

He was sitting in the living room, reading a report from the office, when the door burst open. There was Trish in her jogging outfit, but her hair, which she normally kept tied back on runs, was completely mussed, and her normally serene face was slightly pained. "Harry, can you come here for a sec?"

Harry got up from the sofa and walked across the den to the front door, and he saw that all her weight was on her right foot. "What's wrong?" he asked.

"Oh, babe, I twisted my ankle halfway down those stairs to the beach."

"You should have known better, kid," he laughed, as he maneuvered himself to her right side and put her arm around his shoulder. "It was raining pretty hard last night, and those steps get damp."

"Oh, shut up and carry me," she said, with a laugh, leaning her weight into him.

He brought her to the sofa and set her down. "Thanks, Harry," she said, and let out a big breath.

"Anything I can get Vanessa to do for you?" he asked. Vanessa was the maid they suddenly had.

"Oh, no, that's good, don't disturb her," she said, before her face twisted with a hint of suspicion. "You've been behaving yourself while I was gone, right?"

"Yes, dear, why?"

"Oh, I just get the feeling that..." she began, and then her eyes squinted as she let out a large laugh. "Oh, nothing."

"Okay," Harry said, as he went to pick up the report and start reading it from the chair. Something at the back of his mind told him that he should get her an ice-pack or something, but with an evil grin, he decided to leave her there on the sofa. He got back to reading the report, but was only a sentence in when Trish's voice called out from behind the chart.

"Say, Harry," she said. "Is there any chance you can give me one of those massages? I think I might have cramped up at the same time."

He looked up, and she had already slipped out of her gray jogging pants, her long legs extending along the length of the sofa. She was wearing a pair of his boxer-brief underwear, something that drove him nuts, and that she knew drove him nuts. Still, he got up and walked over to her, sighing with feigned annoyance.

"Oh, don't be like that," she smiled, and twisted her body so that she was face down on the sofa. "Nobody gives massages like you do."

"Uh huh," he said. She bent her knees to lift her feet up so that he could sit where her feet were, and when he did, she lowered them again on his lap. He began to work on her right calf. It was amazing how much like an athelete's it was, with such a narrow ankle but large, toned muscles up just below the knee joints. He kneaded his fingers into it, a little less gently than he should have if he was hoping to smooth out the cramp.

"Oh Harry," she purred, "that's nice."

"Not too rough?" he asked.

"Mmmmm," was all she responded. She wiggled a little, and then turned onto her left side, resting the back of her head on her biceps as she watched him. His eyes went up past her leg to the way that bulky sweater of hers was hugging her curves, and there was something about the way it clung to her breasts that made them seem even fuller. Her other arm was resting on her side, her fingers tugging at the elastic of her underwear, as if relieving an itch. Harry felt himself harden a little, the blood beginning to rush to his penis as it pressed against the tight confines of his own pants. Still, he didn't break from his current task.

"I can't wait to get out of these clothes and into a shower," she said.

"Are you feeling up to it? You can go right now if you want..."

"Oh no," she cooed, "not yet, Harry."

Harry shrugged and continued to massage the calf.

"Actually, it's hurting the thigh a little too. Can you move your hands up?"

He sighed slightly, and as she twisted her body face down again, he brought himself up behind her, trying to be mindfull of her calf and ankle as he rested his body against the sofa, his hands beginning to work at the back of her thigh. His fingers poked into the sides of her flesh as his thumbs circled deeper and deeper into her muscles, and this time, without Trish being able to see him, he stared at her ass without shame. She was so toned, and she still had much of the muscle from her training days, but paradoxically she'd softened so nicely. It wasn't long before his hands had gone so high up her thigh that his thumbs were caressing the outline of the base of her right buttock, well above the boundary of the underwear. He had a raging erection now, and eagerly wanted her to see or feel it inadvertently, to let her know how hard he was, but he resisted, and somehow found a satisfaction in doing so.

"How's that?" he asked.

"Mmmmmmm," she said. "Nice. Don't go too high, though."

"Why not?" he asked, and lifted his left hand so that his index finger was touching her crotch. She gasped a little, and then wiggled a little to force more pressure down on his finger.

"I'm a little embarassed..."

"About what? How wet you are? That's probably just sweat from the jogging."

"Oh no," she said. "Not at all." Then she laughed. "And you're only giving me a massage!"

"How's your back?" he asked, and she giggled, before reaching back with her hands to raise her sweater up, exposing her back to him. Normally, she wore a light-coloured jogging bra, one with a fantastic fit that hugged her body so well that the darkness of her nipples was visible through the fabric. But she wasn't wearing one today, and as he began to work up her lower back he could see the full outline of her breasts on either side of her torso as they pressed into the sofa. His hands massaged the fleshy part of her back below her ribs as his thumbs walked up the vertebrae, and it wasn't long before he was sitting comfortably on her thighs, his palms pressed against the rib cage and his middle finger on each hand tracing the contours of her breasts on their outer sides.

"Mmm! Careful..." she said, coyly.

"Why?" he asked.

"You have work to do, don't you?"

"I suppose I do," he said, and began to get up.

"No!" she cried, and then lifted herself up so that she was on her knees and elbows, her sweater brought up to her neck, and her breasts hanging there, with their rock-hard nipples staring down into the sofa. She looked back at him from over her shoulder and said, "I want you to grab them."

"Grab them?"

"Yes, soft at first, just cup them, pinching my nipples."

He sighed again, and got behind her, his penis now jutting out like it was trying to break through the zipper, and he pressed it into the fold of the underwear that was tightly tucked into the crack of her ass. He leaned over her, and he wrapped his arms around her and pressing his palms onto her perfectly flat stomach, slowly bringing them up to where her breasts were hanging. All his body's weight was on her now, and she was supporting the two of them on her elbows, biting her lip as she did so, as he saw through some loose strands of her curly dark hair that tumbled over the edge of the sofa. When his hands found her breasts he slowly cupped them, and as he did, she let out a groan of pleasure and pressed her ass back into his crotch, and he felt as though he was penetrating her right then. At that point, she started circling her bottom and looking back at him with a big grin, saying, "Why haven't we been doing this more often, Harry?"

He inhaled sharply and said, "You tell me."


Rebuilding Harry Ch. 01



At that point, he woke up with a start. The room was dark, and when he finally got his bearings, he looked over at his wife, curled up and facing away from him. He breathed in and out steadily, before closing his eyes and trying desperately to bring back the dream.

He couldn't.

When Saturday came, he pretended to be sleeping as Trish got up and went about her morning routine. She had a shower, went for some breakfast, came back to the bedroom to brush her teeth and then apply some makeup, before Harry sensed her take one last look at the bed to make sure he was still asleep, leaving quickly thereafter. When he heard her car start, he lept into some clothes and ran to the front door, wanting to jump into the car and get going while she was still in his view but he was no longer in hers. While peaking out the front door as she backed out of the driveway in her red sportscar, he quickly threw on a cap and sunglasses, and as she pulled away he slowly opened the door to get ready to dash for the car. When he saw her turn the corner, he ran to his own sedan and got inside, hoping to catch up in time before she reached the main intersection that anybody leaving their part of the suburbs had to drive through. He was a little nervous as he got the car going that he was going to miss his chance, or that maybe she would turn back because she forgot something, but when he reached the corner and could see her car off in the distance going where he thought it would, he felt relieved.

Relieved, that is, until he realized she might have been on her way to a tryst with some stranger. At that point, the quivering feeling in his gut that he'd set aside for the week began to grow, as if taking revenge for having been repressed for all that time. He fought it down as best he could, reminding himself that he didn't have the whole story yet. For all he knew, this might be the first time. She might not even go through with it.

When her car turned a corner again, he marked it and took off to follow her, and when he got to that corner, he found he could predict where she was going next. She did seem to be following the path to the town's tennis courts, but she hadn't dressed for it or taken any of her gear with her. A couple of times he thought he lost her when a red light didn't go his way or when another car took too long at an intersection, but when he resumed the path he thought she was taking, he found her car not too far out of reach. When, after ten minutes of following her, he saw her from a block away stop at the athletic complex where she was a member, he looked around to see if he could stop himself and wait for her next move. As it was, though, she was only there briefly, and the feeling in his gut flared when Harry saw a tall, masculine figure approach her car and enter the driver's side.

It took a second for him to regain his composure, but no sooner did she take off again that he accelerated to keep pace. Now would be the tricky part, since he had no idea where they could be going, and he would have to follow from a closer distance without being so close as to be detected. Part of him felt he couldn't pull it off, and almost went home out of dread of losing them - or worse, keeping pace with them - when the thought reemerged that this man and his wife had thought so little of him, both in his familiar answering machine message and her lack of shame in keeping it there to be found, compelled him to continue on.

It was a tricky negotiation, keeping pace with them, but finally, when the car pulled to a stop on a road in the nicest part of the Hellespont suburbs, where the richest rows of estates were, he realized that the moment of truth was ahead. He waited from a distance to see them leave the car and go into one of the bigger houses, before summoning up the courage to park a few houses down, and after a quick look around, turned off the engine and left the car. He came to a house neighbouring to the one they went into, and looked around to see if he could be detected, and then snuck into the backyard. There were plenty of bushes, and he was able to keep cover, and there were no cars in the driveway, so he was confident that he wouldn't be detected. Still, the dread in his gut remained.

He saw through one of the windows that they were very touchy-feely with each other, and instantly his gut started to grow numb at the confirmation of his worst fears. Still, he couldn't look away, and he was struck by how he was able to notice the details of it. The guy, for instance, was initiating much more contact than her. Perhaps she's already put off by him, Harry thought darkly, before he saw them go towards the rear of the house. He moved to get a better view, kneeling down in the middle of a couple of shrubs that shielded him pretty well from view, and the neighbourhood was so tranquil that as they went around to the far side of the pool and sat in the sun and when the man, Jack, finally spoke, it was as though it were happening five feet away.

"So what are you saying, Patricia? Come on, out with it." His tone of voice seemed disturbed. Harry felt a tiny thrill.

Trish didn't say anything, but sipped on her drink slowly and deliberately.

"Look, Patricia, I'm not that spineless husband of yours," he said. "If you've got something you want to say, I want to hear it. I haven't been taking you for granted like he has, you know. I deserve to know."

"Harold hasn't been taking me for granted," Trish said. "It's just..."

"Just what?" The man stood up and strode over to her, leaving his drink behind. "Stand up."

She glanced up at him with an amused look on her face. Harry felt a little surprised that anybody would dare command Trish to do anything. In all the time he'd known her, she didn't seem like the type to appreciate being bossed around. The few fights that Harry and Trish had were usually centered around him being too pushy, and because of that he'd long ago subdued the desire to control her.

But, to his surprise, she stood up, and as she did, Jack grabbed her around the waist. She leaned away from him, but didn't force his hands off.

"I just don't really want to continue all this, Jack," she said.

"Why not?" Jack asked. "Haven't I been good to you? Haven't we been electric together? I can't have been the only one sensing it when we fuck."

"No, no, that's been great..."

With that, Harry almost collapsed. The idea of Trish being intimate with another man was no longer an idea -- it was a reality. Suddenly he was cold inside, and his head was heavy. He felt tired, totally drained of energy. He felt himself listen to her continue to speak, but suddenly, none of it mattered anymore.

"...I just think that it's over. What we had was something I needed, sure, but I don't really need it anymore."

"How can you say that?" Jack asked angrily. He gripped her tightly.

"Easy, Jack, I know you'll have no trouble replacing me," she laughed, and she brought up one of her hands to his face, stroking his chin with the back of a fingernail.

"You bitch," he said. Harry felt a tiny surge of damaged pride. That was his wife this man had just insulted. Nothing could change that. No man could call a woman he loved a bitch.

And then she laughed. "I'll miss that fire you have, though."

No man could call her a bitch, except, apparently, for this man. And with that, the emptiness within him was complete.

"So that's it," Jack said.

"Yes, I think so," Trish said.

There was a pause, before Jack said, "How about one last romp? For old time's sake?"

She giggled. "It'll be nice to have something to remember you by." Her hands went down to grab his ass, and Jack's came up to begin undoing her blouse. Harry watched for a brief moment, seeing that emotion in her eye, of being flirted with and flirting back, a chemistry that he once knew but no longer did, and now he knew he no longer would. In his more sexually adventurous days, the idea of voyeurism in this fashion had a certain appeal to him, but this time, as they began to kiss, Harry wanted nothing to do with it. He turned and snuck back to the car.



Rebuilding Harry Ch. 02



A year later, Veronica walked into the office, as Jack was interviewing candidates to replace his recently-departed secretary, Susan, who had decided to give up her job to spend more time with the husband and children. He was happy for her, although he felt a twinge of jealousy that stuck with him for a while, as Susan's husband's recent promotion had meant they no longer needed the second income. With each candidate that came into his office that day, the feeling of guilt at having let his career stagnate the way it had deepened. As he was getting to the bottom of the list, after having found a few suitable candidates to choose from so that the mundane business of work could return as usual, the beauty walked in.

It was almost a miracle of nature the way she moved. She had thin features but very pronounced curves, and yet she was both businesslike and graceful as she strutted in on her high heels. Her face was heart-shaped, with slightly pouty lips, and her wavy hair fell about her head in almost comical glamour. Her blouse was done up to the top button, but the dark shadow of her bra gave her an added sexuality that might not have been matched were she showing more skin. And yet, as she walked, the heft of her breasts was unmistakable as each step gave them the tiniest jiggle. Her skirt was also modest and brazen at the same time, going down to her knees but promising a glimpse of something scandalous should she sit and cross her legs just so. She had glasses on with a slightly thick rim, and Harry's first impression was that she must have been putting on airs to seem smarter than she was, and yet her eyes, which did have a lucious smokiness to them, betrayed also a sharp mind. She didn't blink, staring much the way movie stars do when they're trying to look intense, and her mouth carried the slightest sultry grin. And, when her left hand went up to remove the glasses, Harry noticed an engagement ring. It made him smile inside, wondering if perhaps she treated her own man the way Trish had treated him, or if she was a devoted fiancé. In a way, it made him feel relieved -- if she were single there might be some tension, but there was a comfort in knowing she was taken, like balance being restored to the universe.

"Hello!" she said charmingly as she took his hand and shook it, after having tucked her glasses away.

"Hi yourself," Harry said. "You must be Veronica?"

"Smart man," she said, with the hint of teasing in her voice. Harry was impressed by the way her eyes locked on his. There was a confidence that he found reassuring -- many of the other applicants had been deferential and cowed, or their confidence was something almost manufactured. Veronica, on the other hand, seemed interested in engaging him. If her manner was like this at work, it would make for a great co-worker. She'd probably make a better impression for him to future clients.

"Please, won't you sit?" he asked, motioning for the chair as he went to the desk to grab her resumé from the pile. The pile itself was a standard job interview technique that the office forced down his throat -- part of the criteria was to see how an applicant would react to knowing that there was competition, and to have that fact hovering in the interview. They liked poise. Harry personally thought it was overrated, but he had to admit it had a telling effect upon many of the applicants, and showed which ones responded to stress worse than others. Veronica glanced at the pile, and then looked like she was holding back a big grin, but managed to keep the amusement only in her eyes.

"Thanks so much," she said. As Harry began to look through the resume, she suddenly became even more impressive. She was going through law school at the moment, but had completed a double major already in anthropology and political science, graduating with honours in both disciplines. She'd worked as an assistant to the vice president of a competing firm, and it sort of surprised him that she'd be willing to take a pay cut for a less prestigious position, so that was the first thing he asked about.

"Well, I guess, to begin with, this looks really good," he said, waving the resume. "Makes me wonder why you're going slumming. Is that what you're doing?"

"Maybe," she said, cocking an eyebrow, and then she laughed. "No, no, I don't see it that way. School's just very demanding, and while I love to work in offices I just couldn't handle the crazy hours at my last place. And, to be honest, the role wasn't fulfilling."

"Well," Harry said, "you do understand that there's always the possibility that I might choose to take on an extra project here or there."

She gave him an appraising look, and it was sobering. In an instant, she'd seen from his age and position that he hadn't been all that upwardly mobile, and her eyes said, Who are you kidding? But then she had a look of reevaluation, and asked, "Is there some interesting work starting to pour in?"

He grinned. "Smart girl," he said.

"Girl?!" her mouth dropped, her pouty lips emoting shock, before she pursed them playfully. "I might be a student, but I've been around the block a few times."

"Oh really?" he asked. "How are you with a computer?"

Immediately she leaned forward across his desk and reached out to turn the resume over to the next page. Even as his eyes drifted down to the bosom that almost brushed the desk even though her torso was well above it, he could sense that her eyes weren't leaving his. He coughed and quickly glanced at the portion she was pointing to, entitled "info-tech skills". She had all the right acronyms, databases and the software packages that they were using, as well as a dozen others.

"You want to see my portfolio?" she asked, her eyes boring into him as she kept her pose above his desk.

"That's okay, we usually do testing for that if we need it," he said, looking down.

She laughed, and sat back, straightening her outfit. "Harold, there's nothing about me that's faked."

He looked up at her eyes again, and it was amazing for him. This woman was so fun. There was a playfullness in everything she did, even in the way she said his name. With Trish, "Harold" sounded like a chore for her to say. With Veronica, it was entertainment.

"That may be the case," Harry said, chuckling self-consciously at this sudden feeling, "but we'd have to do the tests anyway. We do need to be certain about what's under the polish."

She shrugged. "I suppose that's fair, although I'd just love it if we could dispense with that part of the process."

"Why's that?" he asked, eyebrows raised.

"I hate to show off," she said. "Sometimes I've found that you can get further by letting others think they've got the better of you, skills-wise."

"Oh yeah," he said, "which is why you mention the double-major right at the top of the resume for people to see." He threw a thumb at the wall beside his desk, where his own undergrad and MBA were hanging, and he added, "By the time you leave law school you'll have more degrees than me. Yeah, I'm really sure I've got the step on you right about now."

She looked down and to the side with a wry grin, as though she was annoyed at having been sloppy.

"Hey, it's cool," Harry chucked. "I need a good co-worker. And trust me, if it were a guy with these sorts of credentials I'd hire him in a second too."

"So I have the job?" she said excitedly, her eyes lighting up.

"Not so fast," Harry laughed. "We still have the testing to conduct. And that'll be with someone who's a little less susceptible to your charm, if I know Mrs. Kowalski at all."

"Oh, come now," she said, standing up. With a slick motion she removed her glasses from her breast pocket and replaced them, and then took a step forward. "Nobody's immune to charm." She slinked towards him and then sat on the corner of his desk, leaning forward an putting a hand on his knee. "Couldn't we just... forget about the test?"

He couldn't wipe the dumb grin off his face. This thing was so surreal it was practically goofy. He gestured with a head tilt towards her ring finger. "Wouldn't that be a little inappropriate?"

"He's a shmuck," she said quickly, unphased. "He's going nowhere in life, and he doesn't feed my imagination. I mean, I don't know you, but this vibe I'm getting right now... I think we could be good for each other."

With that, Harry let out a guffaw and grabbed her hand and removed it from his knee. "You're funny. You still have to do the tests."

She laughed too, before going back to her seat. "That's fine. Do you have any other questions for me?"

"Yeah," Harry said. "Assuming all goes well, when's the earliest you can start?"

"Straight away," she said.

Harry frowned for a second, and then glanced at the flip calendar on his desk. "Isn't it exam time?"

"There's always something," she shrugged, and then grinned.

"Well, cool," he said, and then stood up to shake her hand. She took it, and gave a courteous and professional handshake. "Thanks very much," he said, before adding dryly, "It was an absolute pleasure."

"Oh, good!" she said, and before he took his hand back, she said, "By the way, you ought to know that I wasn't the only one getting interviewed here."

Harry laughed, before letting go of her grip to replace her resumé in the second pile. "Really? How did I do?"

"Better than you think," she said. "I get the feeling you're the modest type. That's unnecessary for certain people."

"Well, thank you," he said. "Good luck on those tests, hey? I think you'd be fun to work with."

"Thanks!" she said sweetly, before turning to walk for the door. Right when she reached it, she turned back briefly. "By the way, the ring's a fake."

"Huh?" he said, looking up.

"Yeah," she said, licking her lips. "It's a good way to keep the creeps away." With that, she gave a wink that stirred Harry inside, and then sauntered off to the main office for her testing. For more than just a passing moment, he watched her body, which seemed paradoxically both slim and voluptuous, before ringing the main office to send in the next candidate.

Veronica performed magnificently on all the aptitude tests, which was a relief for Harry because he hated the idea of either not hiring her or trying to find an excuse for having chosen a subpar candidate. He almost felt a little guilty at how detached he was with every successive applicant, but none of them had anything on her. A quick reference check showed that she did indeed have all the work experience that she'd claimed, and between that and her skills, it was no contest. It was such a pay decrease, though, that he almost felt like she was going to be doing him a favour by taking the job, but when he phoned and asked her if she wanted the job, she giggled excitedly and said she'd love to.

That night, when he got home, he lay down in the bed next to Trish, and fell asleep immediately, a dumb grin on his face.

From the moment Veronica started at work, it was as though a jolt of electricity had been induced into everything surrounding Harry at the office. He suddenly felt compelled to finish reports quickly, and enjoyed having her deliver paperwork for him so much that he strove to produce as much as he could. He started booking more meetings, reviewing figures more, and took on any extra project he could, even though he never asked Veronica to stay past her normal quitting hours. He liked having visitors, because he knew that the first impression they would have of him would be swayed by her -- her confidence, her charm, and the fact that, at the end of the day, she answered to him. He enjoyed making decisions outside of the office now and asking her advice on them, even though he read from her eyes early on that they both knew it was pointless because she was going to encourage him to go with his instinct anyway.

Veronica herself was a machine. By the end of the first week she had reorganized every file at her desk and in his office. By the end of the second week all the online information was cleaned up and archived, so thoroughly that the office's network administrator had to come by to make sure that nothing irresponsible was being done. She'd put in a half-dozen requisitions for things that Harry had meant to get around to but never did, placed plants all over that seemed to be on some sort of miracle food, and even had his calendar synchronized with two new Blackberries -- one for her and one for him -- so that at any given instance he might know about a new meeting she'd just booked for him. Of course, he had no idea how to work the damned thing, so she fixed it up that an updated schedule would pop up on the computer screen whenever he needed to know something, and the Blackberry just took messages from her when he was away from the desk.

The coffee she made was excellent, and the memos that she was sending on his behalf made him sound like a Rhodes scholar. When the latest email virus came around and every machine in the office was brought down, it took her only a half-hour to restore the data from the archives she'd made, and while chaos reigned in the rest of the company, with everything cancelled for the remainder of the day, Veronica and Harry had a quiet beer in his office and talked about a new guy she was seeing and her progress at law school.

Her demeanor towards him was nothing but professional, and it was invigorating. Before, he and the others in the company had grown so accustomed to each other that what had once been a pleasantly informal environment had turned into a drab and unexciting routine of hellos and mindless smalltalk. But Veronica would have none of that. She constantly referred to him as "sir" or "Mr. Stevens", completely straightfaced when others were around (although with the hint of a smile when they weren't), and it wasn't long before others were referring to him as Mr. Stevens too. In fact, most of the secretaries were keeping a close watch on her and had set about duplicating many of her improvements to Harry's work area in their own corners.

He found that even with the added work, things were running so efficiently that he could hit the company gym for a half-hour at lunch, and after a week of soreness suddenly he had even more energy than before. Veronica never joined him, although there were a couple of times when she was showing up when he was leaving, and he was glad they didn't work out together. She wore tight sweaters and very short shorts, and the thought of her getting into and out of them in the locker room drove him to distraction when he should have been more focused on work.

Life at home with Trish was the same as ever. She started spending a little more time around the house since that day with Jack, taking up photography as a hobby. He bought her a digital camera for her birthday, the kind that can hold thousands of pictures in the memory card and even record video, and she'd been using it frequently, on things in the house or in the garden. At first, it was an interesting change, but before long it wasn't as though things were any different. Even though she was in the house, she wasn't there, really.

Still, while there were many times during the last year since he learned of her infidelity that he wanted to spend as little time at home out of dread, suddenly he was looking forward to every new work day. Once he even caught himself leaving before Trish could give her ritualistic morning "Goodbye", and it made him smirk. He had been preoccupied that morning with the fact that the day marked Veronica's first three months of employ under him, and he was wondering about coming up with some sort of thank-you for her.

As it happened, he'd decided upon flowers, some daisies, and was carrying them into the office when Veronica greeted him with a slightly forlorn look.

"Bad news," she said, instead of the usual "Good morning, Mr. Stevens."

"What's up, Veronica?" he said, suddenly nervous. Things had been going so smoothly he hadn't even thought about a contingency plan in case something was to change.

"The company's being audited," she said. "Surprise inspection."

"Huh?" he asked. "We've already squared all our numbers with accounting. We're clean."

"I know, I know," she said. "But they had a power surge or something and all their computers are wiped out. The audit's on everything for the last two years - something about a really bad oversight - and so we have to re-submit everything for that time period. Reg phoned me at home and asked me to come in early to talk to him about it."

"Reginald phoned you?" Harry asked, raising an eyebrow. Reginald was the vice-president, and while it seemed that there was increased traffic around his desk in general since Veronica's arrival, Reginald had been stopping by a little more often than before, usually with report requests or whatnot. Harry hadn't thought on it before, but suddenly something seemed amiss.

"Yes, that's a whole other headache," she said. "I'm just in the process of putting the data together in a spreadsheet, and when that's done Reg has asked me to start working with the other secretaries to get their work in order as well."

"Reg asked you that?" Harry said, suddenly a little annoyed. She was technically a company employee and could be snatched up by anybody higher up than Harry on the food chain, but it still felt underhanded.

"Yeah..." she said. "I was toying with the idea of giving an excuse why I couldn't, but I thought I'd run it by you first."

"Right..." he said.

"Nice flowers," she said. "Who's birthday is it? I didn't have anything in your calendar."

"Oh," he said, flustered. "They're for you. Three months of good work."

"Thanks!" she said, brightening a little. "Let me put them in water." With a luscious smile and eyes that glistened a little behind her glasses, she got up, took the flowers, and began to walk towards the staff room. He watched her go, and suddenly he had this feeling that everything that had been going well was at risk of slipping away from him. He could tell where this was going. She'd been recruited to work as an assistant to the vice president at her last job, and that was going to happen again here. Could he blame Reg? Not really, but he could be pissed about it. He felt a buzz of jealousy in his stomach, and went into his office in the worst mood he'd been in for a long time.

Sitting down at the desk, he saw a checklist that Veronica had prepared for him - things that he'd need to do for his end of the audit. Veronica was big on checklists, and normally every one she threw at him was immaculately laid out, but a quick glance at some of the spelling errors showed that this one had obviously been hurried. He looked at it, and then noticed that his computer was on, the scheduler indicating that all his appointments were cancelled for the day. He looked back at the paper, and saw that at the bottom she wrote "I'll be staying late tonight. -V"

He sighed, and went over to the filing cabinet in the corner of his office and began to remove accounts for the last two years.

"I ordered Chinese," Veronica said as she walked into the office early that evening. Harry looked up from the desk that he'd been sitting at for most of the day, and it seemed like numbers were swirling all around his field of vision.

"Thanks," he said, focusing on her. The office had been closed for the day, and while most of the others were staying late also, she'd forgone her usual dressy wardrobe and was wearing her gym sneakers, black jeans and a loose sweater. She also had on her glasses and her hair up in a bun, which was consistent with how she normally did herself up, but it looked odd with the red pen she'd jammed behind her ear. He smiled.

"What?" she said, catching his grin. "Don't you dare make fun of the way I look, or you'll be getting decaf for the next week."




Rebuilding Harry Ch. 02



"You look fine," he said. "When will the food get here?"

"Should be here in twenty minutes," she said. She poked a thumb over her shoulder. "Do you care if I bring my work in here? I've got to double-check a bunch of stuff with you, and frankly, Reg is getting on my case."

Before he could complete a nod, she whisked out to the front desk and came back hoisting a large pile of folders that she then dumped on his desk, knocking over a small calendar.

"Sorry," she said.

"Something on your mind? What's Reg on you about?"

"Oh..." she said, "Nothing really unusual. He likes how well I've got the data-consolidating going and he keeps complimenting me on it."

"Jeez," Harry said pointedly. "You'd think he wanted you to work for him.

"Oh, he does," she said. "He's been trying to transfer me away from you for a month now."

"What?!" he asked. "When's this been going on?"

"When you aren't around," she said. "Don't worry. I keep telling him I'm working too closely with you on something really important that the president is keeping his eye on. That usually scares him into leaving me alone."

Harry shook his head and bit his lip, letting the jealousy surge through him briefly, before he suddenly softened. A transfer to Reg's office would mean a pay raise for her. Who was he to keep this girl from advancing in her career? With that realization he had a newfound humility for her having stayed with him that long.

"What?" she asked. "You look like you've got something on your mind."

"Listen," he said, leaning in close to her. "I want you to know I really appreciate what you've done for me since you've started here. That's what the flowers were for. You've been great. Really, really great."

She straightened up, with a surprised look on her face. "Am I getting dumped?"

"What? No, no..." Harry laughed. "It's just... I think maybe you ought to consider it. Advancing in this company isn't easy. If an opportunity to get ahead comes up, maybe it's worth thinking about."

"I don't understand," she said, "Don't you still want me?" There was a morose tone in her voice, but he saw she was biting back a smile.

"Knock it off," he said. "I'm serious. I would hate it if you went. I would really hate it. But I would hate it even more if I thought this job was holding you back."

She didn't say anything for a moment, before leaning in closer to him. Their faces were suddenly quite close together, closer than they'd been in all the time she worked for him. "Listen to me," she said, and he could feel her breath on his face. "I work where I want to work, and I work for who I want to work for. The only reason I'm leaving this job before I graduate from school is if you fire me."

"Well," he said, "I'm glad we sorted that out." Her lips were feasibly within reach of his. If he leaned out just a little bit more...

"Good!" she said, and leaned back in her chair, crossed her legs, pulled the pen from behind her ear and began to scribble on a piece of paper she was using as a checklist. It was a good ten seconds before she looked back at him, eyebrows raised, when he realized that he hadn't moved. He chuckled, and sat back in his chair, with a cool, wavey feeling in his stomach. As he began to run through more numbers, he asked "So, what is it exactly that you like about working in this office, then?" He tried to make it sound as innocent as possible.

"I like your eyes," she said. "They tell me you've got a good soul."

With that, Harry looked up from his work, and appraised the beautiful creature working before him. His eyes poured over every inch of her body, wondering what her underwear was like, wondering how she'd look naked, curled up next to him in bed staring at him the way she'd just done, and even as he looked back at his paperwork he couldn't shake these new images in his head. It wasn't until five minutes before the food arrived that he started being able to concentrate, but when it came, he saw she'd ordered spare ribs, and it was all he could do to keep from staring at her suck the sauce off her fingers with her full lips, or licking something off the corner of her mouth.

The audit continued until the end of the week. Veronica couldn't avoid Reg for much longer, and on the Thursday and Friday Harry barely saw her as she went from desk to desk, explaining the spreadsheet she'd designed for the final totals to each of the secretaries, fixing small problems as they arose. She'd cleared his schedule entirely for those two days, and came in occasionally to check up on him, but for the most part he worked alone. Trish had been asleep each time he got home that week, and so human contact seemed scant since the audit started. It wasn't until he managed to send off the final reports in the interoffice mail that he realized just how exhausting the process had been, and he took a deep breath and leaned back in the chair. He didn't even realize that he'd dozed off until Veronica walked into his office with a wide smile and a six-pack of beer.

"Wake up, sir," she said, coming around to his side of the desk before propping herself up on it and crossing her legs. "We're finished. Time to celebrate."

"Nice," he said, and he took the can of beer that was offered to him. Veronica looked radiant. She was wearing a nice little suit with the blouse unbuttoned, showing -- without being outright lewd about it -- just enough cleavage to stir him. She had high heels on that made her seem a good three inches taller, and even her glasses were flashy -- horn-rimmed and jet black. And it made him smile as she popped open the can of beer and took a giant swig, as some of it splashed down on her blazer.

"Whoops!" she said, glancing down at the splash over her right breast, before giving Harry a silly look. "Maybe I should take it off. What do you think?"

"Go for it," he said, and she laughed, taking another drink and looking over at the photos he had on the windowsill.

"I must say, your wife is a knockout," Veronica said, pointing out one of Trish.

"Yeah," he said. Veronica rarely asked him personal questions, and because Trish never phoned, this was actually the first time that she acknowleged his status.

"She's stunning," she said. "You two make a good-looking couple."

"Thanks," he said and smiled, knowing that Veronica couldn't know how empty a compliment that was.

"I'm jealous," she said, and it made Harry's heart jump a bit. "I think it would be great to be a part of a good-looking couple."

"What are you talking about?" Harry asked. "What's wrong with Glenn?" Glenn had been the guy Veronica was seeing off and on the last two months. He was a gymnast on the varsity squad at the University of Hellespont, and on the odd occasions that he came into the office to pick her up, some of the other secretaries would get a look in their eye watching him go past.

"No, it's not just that," she said. "It's the chemisty. Glenn's nice and all for the odd dinner out, but there's nothing there. He's handsome, but we don't have that spark." She walked over to the photo and picked it up. "I get the feeling there's a spark here."

"She's photogenic," Harry said quickly, which was true enough. She always had this way of posing in photos that looked surreally glamourous and yet at the same time totally natural, but that particular photo was a little different. It was from just before they were married. He'd caught Trish laughing at a really stupid joke, and he was bugging her about it, and she was trying to control herself as she kept laughing at the joke, at Harry for bugging her, at the camera he'd brought out, and the final result when he snapped the picture was of her after she'd just given up on trying to grab the camera away from him, and she was leaning forward, exhausted and yet smiling broadly, all sorts of excitement in her eyes that lay partially obscured by a couple of loose locks of curly hair.

"She's more than that," Veronica said. "I mean, I'm a woman, and I'd do her."

Harry laughed. "Maybe the problem isn't with Glenn, then."

"No, no, I'm kidding," she said. She put the picture down and came back to sit on his desk, crossing her legs and taking another big sip of beer. As she swallowed, she had a pensive look in her eye. "Why doesn't she ever phone here for you?"

Harry shrugged. It was the first time anybody had asked him a pointed question on his relationship with his wife in years, and he wanted more than anything to answer it, but it felt unnatural to even picture himself doing it. He was worried that if he did, it would all flow out of him uncontrollably, like a dam that had burst.

"I'm surprised, you know," Veronica said. "I mean, if I were a wife of someone as handsome as you, who'd just spent the last season working with a breathtakingly gorgeous secretary-" She adjusted her blazer as she said this, pulling it down, straightening it over her large bosom, with a teasing grin. "-I mean, I'd be wanting to phone here all the time just to make sure nothing was going on."

Harry smiled. "Maybe she trusts that nothing will happen."

"What a fool," Veronica said, leaning in close. "I mean, if I actually was a wife of someone as handsome as you, I'd be able to see how hungry every woman in this office is when they look at you. I wouldn't trust a trashy little secretary like me for ten minutes."

Harry didn't say anything for a minute. "Thanks," he said.

"Thanks for what?" Veronica asked. "I haven't even done anything."

"Yeah," he said, "You have. My wife and I... are having some troubles."

"Oh," Veronica said quickly, backing herself up and looking embarassed. "I'm totally sorry. I had no idea."

"No, no," Harry said, quickly and reassuringly. "It's fine. It's all fine."

"I feel like such an ass," Veronica said. "I'm really sorry."

"It's fine," Harry said. "It's... it's very hard knowing how to be married to her."

"I'm sorry," Veronica said. "It's so completely none of my business."

"Don't worry about it," Harry said as he patted her knee briefly. Veronica didn't move as he did it, as though this sort of contact were routine between the two of them instead of being the first time he'd touched her since she started working there. He got up and walked over to the window with his beer.

"Is it a lack of romance? Sometimes you have to do stupid, necessary things for us girls every now and then."

"Like what?" he asked.

"Well... I'm not suggesting you need to do anything for her, exactly," Veronica said. "From what I know about you, you've probably done all the usual nice gestures for her already. Maybe you need to do something a little different, to fire up the imagination."

"Ha," he said. "I don't know that there's anything I can do for that."

"Well, maybe it's not you," she said. "Maybe you just have to take her to a movie or something. Treat her like you did when you were first going out." She clapped her hands suddenly. "That's a great idea! There's that new totally ridiculous romantic comedy out in the theatres. I saw it with Glenn. It's about a total loser who gets the girl of his dreams in the end. It would be perfect for the two of you."

Harry gave her a knowing look. "What are you suggesting, exactly?"

"Oh, I didn't mean to say you're a loser," Veronica said. "I just meant that sometimes girls like the chase, the obstacles, and all that stuff."

"I don't know," Harry said. "I don't think she'd like that sort of movie."

"Oh, you don't know that," Veronica said. "Some of us are real twits for that sort of thing. Even the hardest, coldest woman can have her heart melt on the weirdest thing."

"Maybe..." he said. "I don't think she'd like it, though. She's never liked romantic movies."

"How about you?" Veronica asked. "Maybe it'll be good for you to see one with her anyway? Maybe get some ideas into your head..."

"I don't think so," Harry said.

"You don't like romantic movies?" Veronica asked.

"Not really," Harry sighed. "They're always like that, somebody yearning for the girl of their dreams or whatever. The movies never tell you what to do after you've gotten the girl of your dreams, when it's years later, and she's bored of you."

Nothing was said for a good few seconds, and Harry was both a little surprised and a little relieved that he'd actually said so much about his marriage with Trish, and the world hadn't ended. "Oh Harry," Veronica finally said. "That might be the saddest thing I've heard someone say in a long time."

Harry shrugged.

Neither said anything for a minute, before the phone rang outside the office. Veronica got up and ran to get it, bouncing in her high heels. Harry watched her reflection in his window, but didn't turn back to see her. He took a couple more sips as he listened to her outside. From the sound of it, it was Reg pestering her again, but she spoke confidently with him, noncommitally but with the hidden message that he'd be waiting for a long time for her to change her mind. It made him smile, thinking about the head she had on her shoulders. Maybe they really did have a good thing going there, and it would be foolish to mess with it. If they could talk so easily and naturally about personal things, maybe it could turn into a proper friendship, the kind he'd actually hoped to have around the office with one of the guys. He'd have to remind himself to control his eyes every now and then, but it'd be worth it to finally have someone he could talk to.

"Harry," he heard from behind. Veronica had gotten off the phone and walked in so quickly and quietly that he almost spat his beer at the window in surprise.

He set the beer down and turned around, wiping his mouth, about to get pretend-mad at her for surprising him, and then tell her how much he appreciated being able to talk about his wife, when the instant her face came into view he saw a strange look in her eyes as she stared at him. "What?" was all he could get out before her hands grabbed his cheeks and dragged his face down into hers for a long, passionate kiss. Her tongue was forcing its way into his mouth before he even realized that he hadn't been kissing back, and when he started, he felt her strong lips guiding his through the kiss, before it ended with her biting on his lower lip, pulling back, and then letting go, with a smokey look in her eyes.

"You aren't boring," she said. "I don't like boring men, and I've been wanting to do that since I first saw you look at me."

Harry's mouth was open and his eyes glazed over in stupid shock. "What...?"

"That's all you're getting today," she said, finishing off the last of her beer and turning to leave the office, "But Monday, things are going to be a little different around here."

"What...?" he asked, watching her go. It was a full minute before the reality of what happened sunk in, and he looked at the remaining beers on the table. Not sure what to do for a moment, he turned back to the window, picked up the beer, chugged it, and then drank two more beers in similar manner before sitting in his chair with a fresh one, thinking only about the kiss and wondering how to leave the office without anyone seeing his embarassment, let alone the raging erection in his pants.

When Harry arrived at work the following Monday, he felt his heart fluttering a little when he stepped out of the elevator to see Veronica at the desk. It took him a moment to actually start walking towards his office, not knowing what would happen next. As he approached, however, he was happy to see that her face didn't emote anything. He didn't really know what to think all that weekend, much of which was spent restlessly, and for whatever reason the impression that things were business as usual calmed him a little. Maybe the kiss had just been meant as a temporary emotional pick-me-up, a confidence booster. Strangely enough, though, it had the opposite effect, as much of the weekend at home he was totally on his heels, once almost gasping aloud when Trish asked him how his week had gone. When he caught himself, he had to admit it was rather funny the look that she gave him, the wordless What on earth is the matter with you? glint in her eyes. He laughed it off as stress brought on by the audit, and she pursed her lips, raised her eyebrows and went back to reading the morning paper. He tried to finish his breakfast, and then spent the rest of the day trying to keep it down, as though the longer Friday's kiss went untalked about, the more obvious it would be that something happened. But, despite a few studying glances by Trish over the rest of the weekend, it never came up again, and by Monday it was back to work to figure out what was next.

"Good morning, Mr. Stevens," Veronica said.

"Good morning, Veronica," he said. "Is, er, my coffee ready?"

"It's brewing right now," she said.

"Any messages over the weekend?" he asked.

"None, sir," she said.

"Anything more from Reg about the audit?" he asked.

"Nothing but an intraoffice email," she said.

"Okay..." he said, slowly, and then began to walk past her to his office. He was half-expecting she might send him some signal or even grab him as he walked by, but nothing. No smile on her lips, no scandal in her eyes, no basic change in routine. Before he closed the door behind him, he turned and asked, "Since everything went alright, is the schedule restored for the week?"

"I'm following up on that right now," she said. "I'll bring you the results with your coffee."

"Uh huh, that sounds good," he said. "You, er, you do that." He took a long look at her clothes, and noticed she was fully dressed, nothing out of the ordinary, not a shorter skirt, not a see-through blouse, nothing. He bit his lip and nodded to himself reassuringly. If something was coming, he thought, it would probably be at the end of the day, as everyone would be getting ready to leave. He'd have the whole day to figure out if something actually was in the works, and if so, to manufacture some excuse to leave early. He sat down at his computer and turned it on. He winced as the monitor lit up, but once it was up and running, he saw nothing worrisome. Just memos and email from the usual people. If everything went according to clockwork, she'd be there with his coffee and a checklist within the next five minutes. As it happened, there came a knock at the door after four.

"Is now a good time, sir?" she asked, poking her head in. Her face was emotionless.

"Uh, yes, yes," he said. He examined her as she walked in, her usual business strut, with his cup of coffee in one hand, and her pen and notepad in the other. She closed the door behind herself, which caught his attention, only that when his eyes met hers, there was nothing in her stare that said anything was out of the ordinary.

"There's a fair bit to do today," she said. "Maybe you ought to read the items I've written straight away."

"Right," he said, and took both the cup and the notepad from her. He placed the cup down, shot her a suspicious glance once more, and then looked at the notepad, running over each part of the checklist, looking for anything out of the ordinary. Finally, finding nothing, he picked up the coffee and gave it a quick sniff, then took a small sip. If anything were in it, he couldn't tell. In fact, it tasted as delicious as ever. He was about to give the checklist a second glance when he heard a rustling next to him. He looked over, and noticed that Veronica was undoing her blouse.

His heart jumped. "Um... uh..."

Her eyes met his. "Is everything okay?" she asked. "I took the liberty of rearranging your two afternoon appointments. Mr. Barker wouldn't have been able to come in today otherwise."

"Uh..." he said as she finished unbuttoning her blouse, and opened it right up so that he could see the lacey white bra that bulged with the heft of her breasts. She then took off her glasses and tucked them into her blazer's front pocket, and then walked towards him, once again, in a totally businesslike fashion. "You're... uh..."




Rebuilding Harry Ch. 02



"How's the coffee?" she asked, getting down on her knees before him. "They ran out of cream so I had to use whole milk. I hope that's okay."

"That's, er..." he said, as he watched her reach out and unzip his pants, and then slip a hand into his underwear and begin massaging his penis. "Holy-!"

"The accounting department phoned, by the way, with an apology," she said. Her other hand had come forward and tugged down on the underwear to let his cock find the air. It was at full, startled attention as she examined it, before leaning down to place the head of it into her mouth, her warm lips and tongue bobbing up and down a couple of times before she broke off and looked up at him. "They wanted to reassure us they're going to do better work backing up their data next time so we don't have a repeat of-"

"Uh...?" he asked.

"Yes?" she said, looking up at him as she took the a firm grip on the length of his shaft, which she then proceeded to pump up and down. She had a commanding touch, and it was hard to concentrate on what he thought he should be saying.

"Er..." he said. "Um..."

"Well, as I was saying," she said as she continued to jerk him off. "There's not going to be a repeat of last week, they wanted to say." She then lowered her head again and sucked on his cock some more.

"Oh God!" he said.

She looked back up and him and said, "Can you lift your ass up off the chair for a second?"

He looked down at her, dumbstruck, before complying. The moment his weight was off the chair, both her hands reached up to the waist of his pants and underwear and swiftly pulled them down to his knees.

"Thanks," she said. "That's better. By the way, you might want to take a look at item number five on the list. It's about next week's meeting. They need you to make a small presentation." She then grabbed his cock again, levered it so it pointed straight up into the air, then dipped her head, stuck her tongue out and ran it up the shaft, before taking its head into her mouth again, one hand firmly gripping the base of his cock, and the other massaging his balls. The moist warmth of her mouth as it engulfed his cock made it impossible to keep quiet.

"Holy shit!" he said, almost laughing it out.

She looked up at him. "You might want to be a little quieter," she said, and then opened her right palm to lick it before continuing to jerk him off. "And item number five is extremely important. It's direct from Reg." She continued to look at him, and he found himself awestruck by the curves of her breasts. He wanted to reach out and touch them, but the sensation she was giving his cock was such that he was afraid to move. He hadn't gotten a blowjob in years, and he wasn't sure he'd gotten a blowjob this good ever.

"Uh, right, in a sec," he said, staring fixedly at her breasts.

"Well, just so you know," she said, continuing to jerk him off, not breaking pace and still not even showing the hint of a smile or even arousal, "that report you need to give requires some files that I'm in the process of preparing for you, so while I'm doing that you might want to brush up on the office policy regarding extending credit to delinquent accounts." She dipped her head back down and continued to suck his cock, only this time her right hand had a firm grip on his thigh as she deepthroated the entire length of it.

"Right, sure, I'll get right on it," he laughed. "Mother of God!"

She made a muffled sound, and glanced up as she was sucking, but not at him. Instead, it was towards the desk, where she took her left hand away from his balls and grabbed the notepad, and handed it to him before she went back to work, this time removing his cock from her mouth so she could suck on his scrotum, jacking him off this time with her left hand, an impressive ambidextrous feat. He held the notepad for a second, but couldn't focus his eyesight long enough to read the first word, and just tossed it to the side.

She stopped when he did that, looking at the notepad and then at him. "Well," she said, "if you aren't going to read that, can you grab me by the back of my head and force it down hard?"

"What?" he said.

"I'd like you to fuck my mouth," she said. Once more, there was nothing in her eyes that was any different from earlier on, when he'd just stepped off from the elevator, so when she went back to fellating him he didn't move his hands straight away. It wasn't until her hands actually took his and guided them to the back of her head and gripped them tightly that he got an idea of what she wanted. As she asked, he pushed her head down forcefully onto his cock, and the feeling was unreal. She could take the entire length it seemed, and it was as though his cock was having its own warm bath. With each upward motion she increased the suction, as if willing the semen to gush out of him. He couldn't keep himself from quickening the pace of the thrusts, and before long he felt a squeezing in his testacles and a pinching feeling within his anus.

"Oh god," he said. "Oh fuck, I'm close."

"Mmmm," she said, pushing his hands away from her head, and then pulling her head back. "Try not to yell," she said, before grabbing his cock and jerking it off visciously fast in the direction of her face as she studied it emotionlessly. He stared down at her kneeling there, her brown hair falling neatly around her head despite his manhandling of it, her blouse open and those magnificent breasts sticking out through them, the bra that pushed them together and created a tantalizing cleavage line that was in the process of burning itself into his memory, and then the waves of energy that started to rise up from within the base of his shaft. His breaths got tighter and tighter, until the pause right before ejaculation, at which point she opened her mouth and stuck her tongue out, and let him fire six forceful shots right onto her face, almost controlling the timing of it with the pumping motion of her hand. There were a few more releases, but then they didn't have much trajectory, but she dipped her head down to catch them in her mouth. As she licked his head clean, she then proceeded to use her finger to wipe the sperm from her face and chin, before lifting her mouth off his penis and sucking the fingers clean with her full, puckered lips. She then stuck her chest out and looked down at it, and noticed a small glob of sperm there as well, which she dabbed up with a finger and licked off. She then wiggled her body a bit to compose herself, stood up, and began to button up her blouse as she towered over him.

"You really should take another look at that checklist," she said. "I think you were distracted."

"Huh?" he said. His mouth was still open, and he felt totally drained, as if all the blood in his body had just migrated south for the winter. He felt so totally weakened that by the time she had tucked her blouse in and replaced her glasses, he was still sitting there with his pants down to his knees.

"Also, Brian from tech support wants to come by in a half-hour to replace your monitor with a bigger one," she said, straightening her hair. "Do you want me to tell him to come by a little later?"

"Hmuh?" he asked, his eyes crossed as he looked at her in disbelief.

"Hmm," she said, "Maybe that would be for the best. I'll tell him to come by during your lunch hour." She turned and walked over to the office door, took a quick peak out, and discretely slipped out without letting it open wide enough for the whole office to see Harry in his half-naked glory, shutting it silently behind her.

He sat there for a full five minutes before the phone rang, bringing him back to reality. He picked it up.

"Harry? It's Reg," the voice said. Harry didn't even respond. "Just wanted to see if there was any chance that you might be able to free up Veronica at some point. Her work last week during the audit was so good, I want to get it documented."

Harry coughed, and then a glowing feeling came over him, as he stood up slowly and began fixing his underwear and pants. "I'm sorry, Reg," he said, grinning slightly, "but she and I are going to be working on a presentation at the next meeting."

"Oh, that's too bad," Reg said. He sounded as though a plan had been foiled.

"Yeah, man," Harry said. "No rest for the wicked. Have to go." He hung up before Reg had a chance to say his own goodbye, and then he sat down in his chair, leaned it back, and smiled.



Rebuilding Harry Ch. 03



Harry had stayed in his office most of that day, and both times he came out -- for lunch and to head home -- Veronica hadn't been at the desk. He felt some sort of obligation to thank her or something for that morning's dalliance, and the next day, when he came in and she wasn't at her desk, he wondered if maybe the fact that he didn't do anything had somehow offended her. There was a memo at his desk, though, saying 'Sorry, talking with Reg, I'll be in later. -V', next to the regular checklist. He twisted his mouth at the thought of Reg monopolizing all her time. He got an inkling in his head to go have a word with him about getting his own personal assistant, but thought better on it. He wasn't in a position to get bent out of shape for the sake of jealousy. He still had a job to do, and, from the look of the checklist today, it was going to keep him busy enough.

The presentation for that week's meeting was a complicated one, and it got even more complicated as he began looking over the numbers in the files Veronica had prepared for him the day before. Some of the company's accounts receivable with their smaller clients were piling up, to the point that it was having an adverse affect on the bottom line, and the board had been toying with the idea of taking a more aggressive stance on collections before the next quarter. The problem was that many of the overdue accounts were with long-standing customers, and even though their hard times were becoming the company's hard times, Harry had been asked to present the case it might be worth being lenient on certain accounts. It would be a tricky road to navigate, he realized, since if he were wrong they might have a whole lot of bad debt as a result, with not much tangible upside in the short term even if he were right. It was one of those business cases that could go either way, and depending upon what the board members thought was best, his presentation might ruffle a few feathers. He actually wondered how he got roped into it, when he remembered that Veronica said it had been Reg who'd dropped the project on him. He hadn't given it a second thought because Reg had dumped projects on him before, but something about this one seemed a little strange. He and Reg had never really been the best of friends, but they'd never had any troubles. But without even really realizing it, he'd just been thrust into a situation that felt oddly like he was walking the plank.

Not to mention that he'd just taken his gorgeous secretary away from him. Something about this didn't seem right at all.

Still, with nothing to do but work and no welcome distraction sitting outside his office, he set about organizing the data in the manner that seemed to convey his point the best. It was tricky work, and he found that all it took was changing the scope a little and the data actually didn't support the argument at all, but favoured a scenario whereby the company ought to actually take a tough stance on the delinquent accounts. Each manipulation he made seemed too much like a manipulation, and by the time lunch came around he had the sinking feeling that the meeting was going to involve trying to con a bunch of suits who were going to see right through him. To make matters worse, he could start seeing the faces of some of those account representatives, people who had their jobs and lives to worry about, who might be affected if his company started coming down hard on their business. It gave him an unsettled feeling, and he couldn't muster up the appetite to eat, so he decided to cool off at the gym instead.

When he left his office, he noticed with disappointment that Veronica was still missing, and he took a quick detour to go up the hallway towards Reg's office to see if she was around. When he went by, he saw that Reg's door was open, and there she was, looking striking as ever, sitting in a chair in front of his desk, next to Reg's own secretary -- a fairly attractive woman in her own right -- and both were taking notes as he spoke. Reg looked up from his desk where he sat when he saw Harry, and stopped talking to give a quick wave. Both Veronica and the secretary glanced over as well, and gave him polite smiles. He'd hoped to see something a little more meaningful in Veronica's eyes, but in professional fashion she went straight back to work. Sunken, Harry turned and walked towards the gym.

About fifteen minutes later on the treadmill, the dashboard heartrate monitor was beeping madly. Harry, who'd been blocking images of Veronica and Reg out his mind, had tried to focus on the report, but had found that it only wound him up more, and when the beeping started he was sweating profusely, his muscles were roaring hot and there was a burning, raspy feeling in his lungs. Instinctively, he panted "Calm, calm..." and began to slow down, retreating into the same place he went to whenever his anxiety over Trish used to start up. Suddenly, there they both were in his head, Trish and Veronica, and he began to dread a new feeling, that whatever had just started with Veronica was about to go the same way as his marriage with Trish had -- eventually, she'd just move on to someone she liked better. Suddenly, he felt even less confident than before, and began to panic anew. He didn't know if he could handle it again -- it had almost killed him to see Trish with Jack that day, to hear her speak of the affair so casually. He didn't want to go through that with Veronica. Suddenly, he saw the look in her eye, the smokey look that she got after kissing him in the office, and for a second he was convinced it was an act. It made him angry, and so he tried to calm himself down, thinking that there was no proof that it was an act, that if he waited until a better moment, he'd know for sure, and that there was no sense worrying until then. But then his mind jumped to when he'd used the same rationalization to calm himself about Trish when he first heard her lover's voice on the answering machine, and before he knew it the heartrate monitor was beeping madly again.

He slowed down, got off the treadmill, and walked over to the counter, where the pretty aerobics instructor tossed him a towel and facecloth. He thanked her, and walked over to the locker room. "Don't think," he told himself as he stripped down and wrapped the towel around himself. "Just relax. Just... be..." He walked towards the sauna rooms.

He stepped inside the last one and felt the steam wash over him like a wave. He sat down on the bench, put the facecloth over his eyes and leaned back, breathing in and out slowly. "Just relax," he thought. "You're all right... you're all right..." He felt the darkness creep up around his field of vision, and for a moment he concentrated on trying to attain peace within, and for a quick moment thought on his friends from high school and university, guys who'd settled, and thought for a moment that it might be worth it not to chase the highest goal, if it meant not knowing what it felt like to lose it. But then he thought further back, to the first time he heard Trish say "I love you", and even though it wasn't that way now, it was still a happy memory. And then he thought of that first time Veronica had kissed him, and even though it might not have been real, that weekend of anticipation had been one of the happiest and most exciting times he had known. And if Veronica was going the way Trish had, well, he could accept that, because those moments, as fleeting as they were, had happened, and could happen again. He thought of having a woman who fulfilled him only as much as his job had over the past few years, and he laughed. He'd have been a bitter old man by the time he was thirty. He was feeling alive now for the first time in years, and he had Veronica to thank for it. He allowed himself to wonder if he could continue to go it alone, if Reg managed to steal Veronica from him, and he considered the possibility that he could, and it felt good, and right. Veronica had been a godsend, but if she was only meant to be a catalyst, that was okay. Maybe he could take over from here.

He got up, and walked towards the sauna door, and opened it, determined to grab a quick cold shower and get back to work. As soon as he stepped outside, though, he saw Veronica standing there, clad in a bathrobe and a towel wrapped around her head, with a look of surprise on her face, and then relief.

"There you are..." she said. "The counter girl said you were back here."

"Yeah," he said, "but I'm heading back. I've got to get to work on this presentation."

"Can it wait?" she asked. "I've got to talk to you about something important."

"How important?" Harry said.

"It's about Reg," she said.

Harry grinned sardonically. "What about it?"

Veronica looked behind to the entranceway, and then went to a sauna room, opened the door, and stepped inside. She turned back and motioned for him to come. He paused for a second, and then followed her in. Once inside, she removed her bathrobe, and turned to him with a big smile. "I'll get to that in a sec," she said, and then walked towards him.

She certainly was a vision. She was like an hourglass figurine, and in the mist the soft contours of her body were highlighted by the diffused glow coming from the window. The moisture clung to her her hips, her breasts, her arms, her legs. She often tied her hair back in the office, but in the sauna, with the towel still completely covering it, he finally saw what a perfectly beautiful face she had. He felt a momentary stirring underneath his own towel, but laughed.

"What's this about?" he said. "What is it about Reg you wanted to tell me?"

She walked around him to close the latch to the sauna door, and then came right up behind him and put her hands on his stomach. They had a cool touch, and she stiffened her fingers and pressed into his belly. "You really have gotten into shape in the last few months, you know that?"

"Come off it," he said as he took her by the wrists. "What's this about?"

"What's what about?" She tugged her hands free and walked around to face him again. He had to fight to keep from staring at her breasts, which hovered there, right before his own stomach, large beads of water or sweat settling on her large nipples. It was tempting to just lean down and take her, but he held himself back.

"Reg. You had something to say about him, so say it." He tried to sound stern, but it was hard.

Her eyes lit up, and her mouth dropped. "You're jealous!" she said. "You actually think I'd... Oh my god!"

"Veronica," Harry said, "I've got a report to do. It's an important report. I'd love to have your help on it, but if Reg is going to keep you all tied up and I've got to do it alone, then I don't have time for this. I've got to work on it."

"Harry," she said, bringing a hand up to his face. "Don't you trust me? I'm here, aren't I?"

"Trust..." he said. "Trust doesn't have anything to do with it. I trust that you're going to do what you've got to do. I can't control that. But I've got to do what I've got to do, and if Reg is trying to set me up for some disaster with this presentation-"

"He is," she said, still smiling at him.

"He's what?" Harry said, shocked.

"He is," she said, bringing her other hand up to his face. "He wants to see you fuck this presentation up in the worst way. While I was in his office I had a chance to look at something on his computer. He's going to ask you exactly the sort of questions that are going to make you look bad. I even helped him on the phrasing of some."

"You did what?" Harry said.

"Yes, and I'm going to help him some more," she said. She bit her lip as she stared at his chest, and then brought her hands down to massage it. "I'm not going to be able to be there for you much. They're already arranging a temp."

"I can't believe this!" Harry said, brushing her hands off him. "I can't believe this." He stopped, shook his head for a moment, and then laughed darkly.

"Harry, Harry," she said, "you have to trust me. Can you do that?"

He looked at her, completely dumbfounded. "Can I do what? Trust you?"

"Yes," she said, suddenly with a concerned look in her eyes. "What's the matter? Why can't you do that?"

Harry didn't know what to say. Staring at her, this beautiful vision before him, he suddenly found it hard to know what to think. There was so much swirling in his head, and all he could do was stumble over to the bench, sit, and hold his face in his hands.

"Harry," she said, walking up to him. "Please, Harry, trust me."

"Why?" he asked.

She took his hands away from his face and brought them to her lips, kissing them and then placing them on her waist. "Because you make me happy. I'm not going to hurt you. I'd never hurt you the way she did."

Harry looked up. "How did you-"

"I didn't, exactly," Trish said, removing the towel from her head, letting her wet hair fall over her bare shoulders. "But I sort of could tell something like that happened." She then reached down and opened his towel, exposing his penis to the steam. It twitched, slightly, before the blood started to rush to it. Then she lifted a leg up and knelt it on his side, and brought the other up similarly, so she was straddling him. He looked down at her shaven vagina, which was inches away from his cock, and it was opened up for him, inviting him to enter her. "I won't do it, Harry," she said. "You can trust me."

"Not yet," Harry said, determinedly.

She stopped, almost pouting her lips a little, but when it became obvious he was protesting this sudden intimacy, she nodded. "Okay," she said, leaning into him, giving him a kiss on the lips, and then leaning back. "I can deal with that. I'll trust you first." She leaned in again, only this time, instead of kissing him, she stuck her chest out, pressing her large breasts right up to his face. Glancing down at her hardening nipples, he couldn't help himself, and ducked his head down to take the left nipple in her mouth, as his hands gripped her hips. She let out a gasp as he did, and said, "Yeah..."

He then brought his right hand up to her other breast, and cupped it, then pinched its nipple between his index finger and thumb, pressing firmly so that the room's moisture caused it to slip out, and she gasped. He then leaned over and sucked that breast as well, and she took hold of his hair by the handfull, pulling him deeper into her. His left hand reached around to caress her ass, before it slipped behind to the where cheeks parted, and he pressed a fingertip over her asshole. She let out a gasp of pleasant surprise, and arched her back even more, before she wiggled off him, backed off onto her feet, and then strutted slowly, invitingly, over to the corner of the sauna room. He was up in a flash, and he grabbed her around the waist, and pushed her forward so that she had to throw her arms up against the wall to keep from falling against it. She gasped again, and looked back, and through the wet strands of her hair he saw her wide, smiling eyes as she bit down on her lower lip. His eyes went down to her ass, and he noticed she was lifting it up and outwards toward him, and he could see the folds of her pussy there, and he grabbed his erection and guided it towards the gap in the center. He didn't stick it in right away, though, but grabbed her asscheek with his free hand, then guided his cock forward, pressing it against the cleavage of her ass, then against her puckered asshole, and then tilted it downward and guided it so it rubbed both lips of her vagina as it glided up towards where her clitoris would be. She groaned, and lifted one of her legs and stepped up onto the bench, and with that he couldn't control himself anymore, but slipped it deep into her hot cunt.

"Oh, God!" she said. "Oh, that feels good."

He saw her take one of her hands off the wall and begin massaging her breast with it. He then took hold of both her hips in his hands, his fingers digging into her flesh, and began to thrust into her, slowly at first before quickening the pace. "Fuck," she said. "Harry..." She turned her face back towards him, and her mouth was open, and her eyes pained, as she implored him to fuck her even harder, and when he did, she moaned and closed her eyes and lifted her head back, and put her hand back on the wall so that she could buck against him, her breast falling free from her grip. He immediately let go of her hips, and wrapped his arms around her so her could hold her breasts as he tore into her pussy harder still.

"Shit!" she said, and then laughed. "Fuck, yeah!"

She brought a hand back to touch his hip as he continued to fuck her, and rubbed it appreciatively as her groans became completely incomprehensible, each thrust inspiring a gasp brought out of a place of both pleasure and pain, and her head rocked with the fucking, the hair swaying below her, the breasts lifting and falling within his fingers, pulsing with each beat. Suddenly, he felt a tightening deep within her vagina, and he fucked her even harder, and she said, "Oh God, I'm going to come. It's never this fast. Never... oh Lord..."

He started to moan a little himself as she contracted the vagina around his cock, and with that she looked back at him, eyes widening, as she said, "Oh yeah," she said, "I want to see your face when you come. You look so hot right now."

He groaned even more, but he wasn't quite there yet when suddenly she let out a gasp, and then another, as suddenly the pressure around his penis gripped and let go spasmically, and she let out a final, long moan. "Oh..." she sighed, and then looked back at him with a tired smile on her face as she kept up the motion. "That's it, babe, shoot it. Shoot it in me."

"In you?" he gasped, his balls tightening as he no longer felt he could hold back the rising feeling within.

"Yeah," she said, smiling at him. "Right after the interview I went on the pill. Come in me. Now!"

"Oh God!" he said as he suddenly exploded, his hips convulsing, and she kept up the rhythm that he no longer could properly maintain. Just like when she was sucking him, it was as though her vagina's grip on his cock was willing him to ejaculate harder, drawing up more cum than he knew he had. She sensed when he stopped, and lifted herself up and off him, and turned around and gave him a ferocious hug, burying her breasts into his midsection, panting.

"Oh wow," she said, kissing his chest before looking up. "How was it?"

He looked down, sighing. "It was good. Too short, though."

"I know..." she said. "We can't do this for a while, okay? Reg is keeping me at his office, and I'm going to stay there until the meeting."

He nodded, out of breath and unable to argue. He realized that he wasn't doing anything with his hands as she hugged him. He brought them up to her back, and petted her a little before letting them fall again.

"Don't worry," she said as she backed off from him, going over to her bathrobe and the towel for her hair. "Just do your job and I'll do mine, okay?"

"Yeah," he said, exhausted, unable to move as she covered herself up and peaked outside, in case anybody had heard them. She looked back and winked, and then ran off. He was ready to just stand there for all afternoon when the cold air rushed in, and he yelped, and ran over to his own towel to cover up.

After his shower, he threw his own clothes on in the empty locker room. The gym was practically empty, probably, Harry imagined, because many of them were getting ready for other parts of that meeting. A quick listen at the entrance to the women's locker room said that Veronica had already gone back upstairs. He walked out and into the corridor towards the elevators, breathing deeply as he tried to get some energy back into his muscles. After taking the elevator back up to his floor, he walked back to his office, taking the route by Reg's office. The door to it was closed.




Rebuilding Harry Ch. 03



***

He spent the rest of the day staring at files, the two sides of the dilemma weighing even heavier when it came time to go home. He didn't see Veronica at all for the rest of the day, and it bothered him, because he wanted to talk about the case to somebody, except that even after what happened in the sauna earlier there was still no guarantee that she was onside with him. Still, she had left the other firm because the offer of power came with an added work responsibility. Of course, if she'd wanted to get away from extra work she'd certainly have quit this job, what with everything she'd done for him as well as what Reg was hoping to get from her.

And there was something in what she'd said that had seemed strange. "I'll trust you first." Trust him to do what? To do the best he could? To follow her lead into a trap? She'd confirmed that Reg was setting one, but if he was doomed, then wouldn't even more effort on his part make the fall that much harder? The questions bounced back and forth in his mind all the way home until he just had to laugh. This extra paranoia was just causing extra stress, and eating up time and energy that was needed for the presentation. As it was he didn't get enough at the office done, so he had to bring it home. All through dinner, he and Trish sat quietly, her reading the newspaper, him reading file after file. At one point Trish looked up from the newspaper, appraised him for a second, and asked, "Big project, Harold?"

"What?" he asked, looking up. "Oh, this? Yeah. I have a presentation."

"What on?" she asked.

"I have to recommend a strategy on going after some overdue accounts," he said.

"Oh?" she said, sounding politely interested. "And what are you going to recommend?"

"Well," he said, "I'm supposed to give reasons that we be patient with them. It'd be a risk, but it might be the right thing to do... I think. I don't know."

"Why don't you know?" she asked, setting her newspaper aside, placing her elbows on the table and resting her face in her hands. She stared at him so fixedly, it struck him as odd, but that charming beauty mixed with an analytical stare made him answer, despite himself.

"I don't know," he said. "I got handed this presentation by my manager, but apparently the vice president is going to champion a different approach... It's like I've been set up for a fall."

"Wow," she said, pursing her lips. "What are you going to do?"

He shrugged. "My best," he said. "Anything interesting in the paper?"

"Here?" she asked. "No, nothing really."

"Alright," he said. "I, uh, I really should be getting back to this."

"Oh," she said, "Sure, Harold." She looked almost surprised. He couldn't blame her -- he'd never turned down the opportunity to chat with her before, and it occured so rarely, that he himself was a little suprised by it. Still, the weight of the presentation was quite heavy on his mind, and he'd had enough to worry about without trying to explain something he didn't even understand all that well himself. And, try as he could, he couldn't forget about that afternoon in the sauna, about how powerful it was, and yet how brief. It had been potent, sure, but it was too abrupt to have the feeling of love in it. For all he knew, it was a quick fuck that Veronica needed, and that was it.

He looked back down at the files. Each one of them had been given to him by her, so part of him was wondering what to do with the information. If he trusted her, it would be good information to know, right? But if he didn't trust her, then it would also be good information to know, because it would be what would lead him to failure. There was an interesting mix to the files - half of them weren't even in any sort of financial trouble at the moment, but a quick look at the history suggested that they had been overdue once or twice in their history. They seemed to make a case for a lenient approach, based on the long-term outcome. Of the other files, most of them were companies that had good credit for a long time but were now unable to pay for the company's services. A couple of them had cancelled their accounts and were in the process of repaying their debt in a longer-term plan. None of them, however, had gone into bankruptcy.

There were three other files, however, that included clients who had basically gone delinquent. Interestingly enough, though, they were larger firms with a shorter history with the company. They did, however, represent a significant loss. In the long term, it had been absorbed, but that wasn't the most interesting part of the accounts. All three had gone by the wayside almost a decade ago. Why had Veronica included them?

"Just do your job," she'd said. It was all so confusing. He closed his eyes and rubbed his temples, before almost laughing at his psychic's impression.

"What is it?" Trish asked.

Harry looked up again. He'd practically forgotten they were still sitting at the table together.

"Nothing Trish," he said. "Don't worry about it. I'm going to the den."

"Alright," she said, and he felt her eyes on him as he picked up the files and walked past her. He could imagine that he seemed very odd to her, which in its own way was somewhat gratifying, since at least odd wasn't boring.

The next day at the office, and for the rest of the week, there was no trace of Veronica there to help him except for the daily checklist. There weren't any more clues for him from her, though, and by the day before, even though he'd already summarized the points for his presentation, he still felt like something was missing. Through it all he'd tried to keep questions about Veronica at bay. Could he trust her? Was she playing Reg and him against each other? Was she being played by Reg instead? Early on, the more he thought of it, the more new questions he could think up, and so he decided it was best to try to just concentrate on the things he could control, and with that sudden clarity he realized that regardless of whether or not he could trust Veronica, there was a surefire way to figure out if there was an Achilles heel to his proposal, and that was to figure out everything he possibly could.

The office had transfered Mrs. Kowalski to him from Human Resources. She was a middle-aged mother of three who did her work pleasantly, but awaited orders rather than set out to find her own work, which made sense since she wasn't slated to be working for him long-term anyway. So, when he finally came to her the morning of the day before the presentation with his request, she looked up at him, a little startled.

"You want me to do what?" she asked.

"I want you to bring me every file the company has on every client in our division, currently to as far back as when we started fifteen years ago, and to bring someone from IT up here who knows how to work with a database."

"Okay," she said, looking bewildered. "How many files do you expect that to be?"

"Well," he said, "it's probably going to be a couple of hundred."

"Sure," she said, "Whatever you say, Mr. Stevens." She picked up the phone as Harry went back into the office, ready to lay out his plan.

Twenty minutes later, a pudgy, unshaven intern knocked at the door, asking "Mr. Stevens?"

"Yeah?" Harry said, looking up. "Are you from IT?"

"I am," the boy said. "I'm Roger. What did you need help with?"

Harry laughed. "Are you good with databases?"

"I'm alright," he said. "I've worked with Oracle and DB2 involving many different languages, as well as the usual SQL and stored pro-"

"Okay, okay," Harry laughed. "I don't want you to get ahead of me, because you'll be talking about things I know nothing about."

"So," Roger said. "What do you need?"

Harry waved him in and pointed to a chair. "I need to know if you can take a look at all the data we have on our clients, and to pull up every company in the last fifteen years that's temporarily gone into overdue status. I need them to know which ones are still with us, and which ones amounted to bad debt. Can you do that?"

"Psh," Roger said. "Are you kidding?"

"No, why?" Harry asked. "What's the matter?"

"It'll take about two minutes to do, assuming you have a connection to it from here and you're interfaced and-"

Harry waved his hands. "You can use my computer, but as for having a connection and being interfaced and whatnot, I'm in your care."

Roger shrugged, and when Harry stood up from his desk and offered him the chair, Roger went to it and sat down. At that moment, there was another knock on the door as Mrs. Kowalski peaked in. "Mr. Stevens? I have the files."

"Okay," he said. "Did you have to make many trips? Sorry about that."

"Oh, that wasn't a problem," she said. "I only had to make one."

"Really?" Harry asked. "That's great! Where are they?"

"Out here," she said, and when he opened the door he saw a massive loading trolley, about four feet high in boxes.

Harry snorted. "I hope that's all of them," he said.

"Well, I did a quick check and noticed that some from a few years back were missing," she said.

"Oh, that's fine," he said. "I've got those three."

"I counted six missing, Mr. Stevens," she said, looking concerned. "If you have three of them, that still leaves three more unaccounted for."

"Hm..." he said, thoughtfully. "Well, we can catch up with those later. Can you get on the records people and figure out who has those files?"

"Yes sir, Mr. Stevens," she said.

Harry went out to the trolley and pushed it into his office. "How's it going, Roger?" he asked as set it against the wall.

"Well," Roger said, "It was a little trickier than I thought, since there were quite a few joins I had to work out, as well as combining views from several archived-"

"Roger..." Harry said. "You might as well be speaking Chinese."

"It went fine, Mr. Stevens," Roger said. "How do you want the data?"

"Uh..." he said, looking at the boxes of files on the trolley. "I've got to get the records from here."

Roger stood up and took a look at a couple of the topmost boxes. "These seem to be indexed according to an ID, rather than a company or individual name."

"Oh," Harry said. "And?"

"Just give me a second to rework the query..." Roger said. "Ah, yes, it's alright. Each ID corresponds exactly to-"

"Chinese, Roger," Harry said.

"I'll have the printout list them both, sir," he said. "Will that be all?"

"Uh... wait until I can see the report first," Harry said.

Roger sighed, but ran the report from the printer, stapled the four pages together, and handed it over. Harry studied it for a second.

"I had it sorted according to the date of their last transaction with us, chronologically backwards," he said. "That way you can tell at what point which companies stopped doing business with us."

"Uh huh," Harry said. "So the ones at the bottom of the list are the ones that aren't with us?"

"That's right," Roger said. Harry turned to the last page, and noticed that only the last two dozen entries had their last transactions dated further back than last month. He also noticed that there were some big names in those two dozen entries, the sort that made the front page of the Chronicle's business section when they went under. However, there were over three pages of companies that were still current with the company. Ideas popped into his head, and his first instinct was to make a checklist. That made him laugh -- Veronica, siren temptress or not, had made him an organized thinker, and he had to thank her for that.

"What's so funny?" asked Roger. "I laid it all out correctly."

"No, no," Harry laughed, patting Roger on the shoulder. "I just think we might need to run a few more reports, break up the data more. Also, I have a feeling we're going to have to recreate some files from scratch. Can you help me out here a little longer?"

"I guess," Roger said.

"Good," Harry said. "Okay, here's what we need first..."



Rebuilding Harry Ch. 04



When he arrived at work on the day of the presentation, Harry noticed that Mrs. Kowalski was still at the desk, and Veronica was nowhere within sight. He felt himself sink a little. It would have been nice to think he could have gotten a shot of confidence from her support that morning, but apparently he was on his own. When he said his good morning, and opened up the door to his office, though, he saw a steaming cup of coffee sitting on top of a checklist, along with a small memo. "R is going to surprise you with certain files. I might be able to cover. -V"

Harry grinned, before reaching into his desk and pulling out the final presentation notes and report to be photocopied, sitting within a manilla folder. He brought it out and handed it to Mrs. Kowalski, giving her the photocopying instructions for the meeting. He then walked back into the office, and took the customized box of files he'd made based on the previous day's research with Roger, and shoved it under his arm, and walked down the hall towards where the meetings were usually held, coffee in one hand, the box held in place against his hip by the other. When he got inside, he noticed that it was empty, and he began to set up for the meeting, rehearsing his presentation to himself as he took sips from his coffee, trying to quell the anxiety within him. Although he was sure he didn't need her help, part of him hoped that Veronica would show up a little early just for some reassurance, but when the first executives popped in for the meeting, he realized he was going to be on his own. Mrs. Kowalski showed up with the reports, and he circled the table to distribute them, and was settling the transparencies next to the projector when the stakes were suddenly raised.

"Hello there, Mr. Stevens," said Charles Nunberg, the chairman of the board, when he came in, walking up with a hand outstretched. Harry was a little surprised by the direct greeting, since it was the first time anybody higher than a vice president had spoken to him directly since he started working at the company, let alone shaken his hand.

"Hi there, Mr. Nunberg," Harry said, suddenly a little on edge. Mr. Nunberg was old enough to be his father, with a slightly portly look that might have been fat or the holdover of a lot of muscle, and considering the squeeze that handshake had put on him, it was probably the latter. He was an old man with a young face, and really nice grandfatherly eyes that almost made you comfortable, were it not for the fact that he still looked able enough to swim with the sharks. He looked like the classic business executive, the sort of man who reaked of power and benevolence and usually surrounded himself with pitbulls to take care of the nastier side of business for him.

"Oh, please. It's Charlie," Mr. Nunberg said with a chuckle. "We're a company of the new millenium! No need for unnecessary formalities here."

"Alright, uh... sir," Harry said, looking beyond the smiling executive to where the surly assistants were sitting in their full suits, appraising him. Mr. Nunberg laughed again, before turning to go to his seat at the head of the table, opposite from where Harry was going to do his presentation. Right before sitting down, though, he said, "Oh, and by the way, excellent hire on that Veronica of yours. An intrepid woman."

"Thank you, sir," Harry said as the executive sat down and began to mumble something incoherent to his assistant on the left. How did Veronica get a chance to meet with the chairman? He breathed in quickly and shook his head. Never mind, he thought, the presentation, focus on the presentation. He went back to where he'd set things up, and just then, Reg walked in with his secretary and Veronica in tow. Veronica quickly made a beeline for him.

"Hey stranger," Harry said, trying to talk through a smile as the room quieted down.

"I'm so sorry, Harry," she said, trying to compose herself. "He's got a surprise planned, I know it."

"Well, let's cross that bridge when we come to it," Harry said.

"I think it'll be okay," she said. "But Harry, really, I'm so sorry."

Harry smiled, and noticed that everyone was completely quiet, waiting for him to begin. He looked at Veronica, smiled and nodded, and she sat down next to him. He looked at the chairman, who nodded and waved a hand, beckoning him to begin.

"Uh, hi," Harry said. "I'm Harry Stevens from accounts management. I work under Reginald and am one of the agents for some of our small to mid-sized clients, and I'm here to talk about the problem that's been on some people's minds since the last quarterly report. I know that between that and the audit, there's an interest to try to make some changes that look good to investors, and I guess I'm here to give you my opinion on what strategy we should make. If I seem nervous, sorry, it's my first big project here."

He made a quick pause after the introduction, and prepared the first transparency. "Veronica, can you turn off the lights, please?" he asked, and she got up to do it, forcing a smile. He noticed that there was a look of concern in her eyes, and it was odd, because suddenly, despite his quick apology should he seem nervous, he didn't feel that way at all, and with each step of his case, he found himself growing more confident and forceful. He started by explaining the situation, that some clients of the smaller business variety were seemingly in danger of going into delinquency, but that while it might make sense to take a hardened collections stance on them, history had shown that many companies that fit this profile in the past usually made it through based on the merits of their business skill, and turned out to not only be able to pay their bills but continue to do business with their company long afterwards. He then explained how an analysis of the history of these companies showed that by having taken a lenient stance had actually encouraged them to be loyal to the company, to the tune of about a third of the company's profits over the last ten years, and that their recommendations had often brought in other companies, matching the same growth in that market as the company had seen with the bigger accounts with the corporate clients. As he spoke, he felt a strange power over the room, and they were turning pages in the report when he told them to, and transparencies seemed to move off and onto the projector in a surreal paperwork ballet. Even the assistants were paying more attention to the report, trying to keep up with his case, than they were to him. He was just about to settle into his home stretch when a cough sounded out.

"Uh, Harry, sorry to interrupt," Reg said, "I'm sorry, Mr. Nunberg, and others here, apparently Harry isn't up to speed with the large number of companies who've proven to be a liability in that same time period."

"Actually, I'm not there yet," Harry said, trying to maintain a smile. "I can address that concern in a minute."

"Thanks, but we've already heard the crux of your argument," Reg said. "Veronica, can you turn the lights on please?"

Veronica's face grew pale as she looked at Harry. Her eyes were imploring. To her surprise, Harry waved his hand and said, "I'll do it." He walked over to the wall and flicked the lights on.

At that moment, Reg leaned back and whispered something to his own secretary, who got up and began to circulate some new reports around the room. Reg then stood up from where he was sitting, and addressed the room. "Ladies and gentleman, it's important to note that over the years, our company has done business with a large number of companies who've gone belly up, and who accumulated further charges well beyond the point our collections process should allow, to the tune of several million dollars, and this is money that could have been saved had it not been for the laziness of those in accounts management who let these things slip on for far too long. By my figures, and I think these will be more complete than those of Mr. Stevens, we've lost 8 million dollars in our company's history to these clients in bad debt, with a full 4.5 million in preventable losses were we to have taken a harder stance-"

Harry felt a tiny explosion of excitement inside. "5.7 million," he said quickly.

"One second, Harry, you'll have a chance-" Reg began, before stalling. "What did you say?"

"It's actually 5.7 million," Harry said. "With total losses in just under 11 million."

Reg snorted. "You're, like, trying to make my case for me or something?" he asked.

"No," Harry said, "But those are the numbers."

"Well," Reg said. "Those aren't my numbers, and I think I ought to know, because I've had the files at my desk for a while trying to figure out what madness you might be up to in your report."

Harry felt Veronica jump in her seat at that moment, and she opened her mouth. He put a hand on her shoulder, and she looked up at him. Her eyes were suddenly angry. He smiled down at her. Either she was genuinely mad or she was a brilliant actress, but it made no difference. He didn't need her.

"With all due respect, Reg," Harry said, "Our company has, in its history, had twenty-two companies give up business with us, leaving unreconciled amounts that had to be written off as bad debt, some of it preventable. Twenty-two companies, 5.7 million."

Reg opened his mouth, and looked down at his report. Suddenly, there was a bunch of paper shuffling around the room as executives compared the two reports. Heads went back and forth, and there was much murmering, as Harry looked down at Veronica and gave her a wink. She looked back at him, with a continued look of surprise on her face.

"You know," Charles Nunberg chimed in, "You've only got nineteen companies listed, Reginald. Why is that?"

"By my data, there only were nineteen companies, sir," Reg said. "We had all the files."

Nunberg looked up, and then looked over in Harry's direction with a thoughtful squint, and it was a second before Harry realized that it was Veronica he was looking at more than Harry. Finally, he looked back at Reg.

"I don't think you did," he said, "I don't know if it was exactly the same number that Mr. Stevens here was saying - that's why I pay you guys. But you left off McMaster & McMaster. That father and son con job cost us almost three million on its own. How could you not remember that?"

Reg's eyes widened and his mouth closed right up. "I'm sure I had that one accounted for in here somewhere... Veronica? Why wasn't that in the report?"

Veronica's eyes widened in shock. "I wasn't in charge of selecting the files, sir."

"Um... never mind about her," Mr. Nunberg said. "Something tells me Harry wasn't quite finished in his report, which he appears to have spent a lot of time researching." He looked up at Harry. "It does seem to make your case harder to make, Mr. Stevens, though, if it is almost 6 million in preventable debt we're talking about here. That's a lot of money. Still, I think you already have an answer for that, and I'm interested to hear it."

"Uh, thanks," Harry said, feeling a little exhiliration as he watched most of the people set aside Reg's report and return to studying his own. "And you're right, Mr. Nunberg, I do have an answer."

"Please, Harry, it's Charlie," Mr. Nunberg said, smiling. There was a pause as both looked over at Reg, who was still standing.'"Reginald, you can sit down now," Mr. Nunberg smiled. Reg nodded and complied, and Harry saw that at that moment the chairman, maintaining his smile, gave one of his assistants a little nudge with his elbow, and the assistant nodded and made a note.

"Thanks," Harry said. "Um, yeah, I agree, on the surface it doesn't look good for a permissive collections policy to have cost us 5.7 million in extra bad debt. But if you turn to the last page..." Immediately there was the rustling of paper throughout the room as Harry cleared his throat. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Veronica look down at that same page in the report, and then look up at him, with a smile of what Harry almost wanted to call admiration. "...on that last page you should see a breakdown. On one side is a total of all the losses incurred, not just in bad debt, but total debt to these twenty-two companies. On the other side is the total amount of profits received by the fifty profiled companies after they had succeeded in paying off their overdue accounts. Now, that fifty doesn't include about twenty I left off the list because they were of the large business variety and had all sorts of insurance and credit in place to settle up their accounts. I included only that fifty because I wanted to show that the risk we took with them, in not going hard on them for being overdue, actually worked out like an investment for us. Now, of the 11 million total in losses, much of that came from companies like McMaster & McMaster and WestTel, with only 5.2 coming from companies that were mid-sized or smaller. Against the 5.2 in losses, there's over 12.4 in profits, just from that category, for a differential of about 7.2 million." That got some murmurs around the room, and Harry felt a thrill watching as Nunberg's mouth twisted as the chairman studied the figure and nodded. "And that's only showing the immediate benefits with these companies. There's a really bright kid in IT called Roger..." - No reason not to spread the karma, Harry thought, smiling inwardly - "...and I had him take a quick analysis of the referral system we had put in place from the get-go, and it turns out that of those fifty companies, over half showed up as referred-bys in over sixty new clients in the small- to middle-business portion of our clientelle. The, uh, 8 million, that number at the bottom of the report, represents the profits we've made through them."

There were a few more noises of approval around the room.

"And what's this last figure?" Mr. Nunberg asked, waving at a sidebar on the last page.

"Well, our collections policy is to terminate accounts that go delinquent, even though we don't often really do it," Harry said. "I just threw that in there so you could see how much going after them as delinquent accounts would have gotten us, versus how much more giving them some leeway actually has gotten us. I wanted to show it this way because those companies are the same sort of companies we're considering going after today. Historically, they've actually helped cover the losses from the bigger ones."

"I see. Yeah, we certainly did alright there, didn't we...? Back to the 7 million and the... uh... other 8 million... Why didn't you add the two together, Harry?" Mr. Nunberg called out. "15 million is a pretty impressive number. You could have made your case on that alone."

"It seemed presumptuous, sir," Harry said, scratching behind his ear. "In the end, these are just numbers. It could have turned out a lot differently, and there's no concrete proof it's causal. None of this really guarantees a winning formula."

"But it does suggest one," Mr. Nunberg said, "or you wouldn't be here giving this presentation."

Harry nodded. "Well, strategy's not really my specialty, but if I had to give an opinion, I'd say that being a little lenient on the small to mid-sized business has paid off. Like I said before, even with the 11 million in bad debt, less than half comes from companies in that small- to mid-sized category."

"That was my other point!" Reg said energetically, jumping in. "You've got to look at the ratio to see a higher percentage of-"

"Thanks, thanks," Mr. Nunberg said, waving his hand dismissively. "I think that ratio is something that Harry can work on analyzing for us at another meeting. To be truthful, though, this company's bread and butter has always been its wide portfolio, and I dread the thought of having to give up on the little guy just because of some ratio." He stood up. "Harry Stevens... nice work. I think the presentation didn't exactly go according to plan, but you've convinced me. I'll be arranging a meeting between you and our senior strategists and accountants just to verify these numbers, but that shouldn't be more than a formality." With that, he stood up and gave a couple of claps, following which there was a smattering of subdued but appreciative applause as the rest of the executives stood up as well to make way for the exits.

As Harry began to arrange his stuff, acknowleging compliments from those executives who passed by him and shook his hand or patted him on the shoulder, Veronica waited patiently before a pause, before leaning into him and saying, "Thanks for keeping me quiet in there."

"Why?" Harry asked.

"I didn't want to lose it. It would have probably cost me my job, but I would have done it."

"Right," Harry said. "No problem." There was something about what had just happened that still didn't settle the underlying feeling of distrust that was there, but he smiled anyway. She grinned back, and pursed her lips in a naughty grin.

"I'll see you later," she said.

"Sure," he said, and he watched her as she walked off.

As the rest of the executives walked off, including Reg with his tail between his legs, Mr. Nunberg came up to him to shake his hand. "Nice work, nice work," he said. Harry smiled back, feeling tremendously gratified. "Go on ahead," Mr. Nunberg said to his two assistants, who nodded, smiled at Harry and then walked out the door, leaving Harry and the chairman alone together. "Harry, I want to apologize for what happened with Reg just now. I actually knew that he was going to have something ready for you."

"You did?!" Harry said, almost forgetting himself.

"Yes," Mr. Nunberg said. "But I had a look at your file before the meeting today and I saw how you'd been stepping up your workload recently, and looking at the quality of some of your reports in the last few months, and it got me intrigued. I wanted to see how you'd handle it."

"Oh," Harry said. "I see."

"There's a position opening up," the chairman said, smiling. "We're looking to branch out and set up some new offices in a different city, and we're going to be shuffling people around. We'll need someone to help out, doing research for the strategists here as some of our personnel get moved over there. Now, mind you, there's no guarantee, but I'd like to have you interviewed, if you'd be up for it."

"Uh... sure," Harry said. "That'd be great. I'd like that very much."

"It'd mean a bigger office, of course, and you'll have a small staff working for you. Your choice if you want to keep your secretary or not, we've got some more experienced ones available."

"I, um, I don't know what to say..." Harry said.

"Say you'll think about it," Mr. Nunberg said, holding his hand out again with a smile.

"Yeah, I'll do that," Harry said, shaking his hand firmly. Mr. Nunberg nodded and was about to leave, when Harry stopped him. "Um, sir, if you don't mind me asking, how did you know Reg was up to something? You seemed surprised by what happened."

"Oh, your secretary told me," he said. "Charming woman, very protective of you."

"Veronica?" Harry asked, his heart stopping. Suddenly, he felt a shiver in him, as all the distrust he'd been repressing suddenly disappeared, and an electric feeling filled his body. "She told you?"

"Well, not in so many words," he said. "She was just dropping some memo off, and we got into smalltalk. She was pretty discreet, but she'd said she was uncomfortable with some of the things Reg had been asking of her. It all just sort of added up."

"Oh God..." Harry said.

"Yes," the chairman said, as he exited the room, leaving Harry alone. "Like I said, you'd have your choice of a bunch of great people to make up your staff, but I'd hold onto her if I were you."

"Yeah," Harry said. "Yeah, I might do that..." He suddenly was inspired to look down the hall, and he saw that in front of the elevators, Veronica and Reg were standing there in what looked to be a heated discussion, before Veronica leaned back and slapped Reg right across the face, bounding off to the stairs. He suddenly felt an overwhelming urge to be next to her, immediately wanting to get on his knees and apologize to her for all the suspicion he felt, to apologize for the anger that was in him even though it must have been equally hard for her, to have struggled to maintain loyalty to him while having her moves manipulated by Reg.




Rebuilding Harry Ch. 04



He looked around the conference room and saw all of the paperwork that needed cleaning, and he made as quick a job of it as he could before leaving the pile behind to be picked up later, taking a quick route to the stairs back up to his office, where Mrs. Kowalski was cleaning out her desk.

"Mrs. Kowalski," he panted, "did Veronica come back here?"

"Yes she did," she said, "she left a note for you inside, but had to go off quickly. Did you hear?"

"Hear what?" Harry asked, bounding past her to the office.

"She slapped that vice president right across the face," she said. "Right in front of everyone."

"Uh... yeah..." Harry laughed out, looking around the desk for her memo. He picked it up. "Women's washroom, supply room, basement, 3:45. -V" it said, and he felt his heart want to burst into joy. "How about that, hey?"

"Yes," Mrs. Kowalski said, poking her head in. "Apparently he was trying to get her to take the blame for his mistake or something?"

"I guess so," Harry said, looking into his reflection in the window to see if his hair was straight. "Yeah, I think something like that happened."

"Well," Mrs. Kowalski said, in a gossiping tone, "It'll be fun to see what happens next. Do you think they'll be firing her or Reginald? I hope it's him."

"Gotta run," Harry said, checking his watch as he leapt out the door, running up to the elevator, pressing one of the buttons, shuffling on the spot as he waited, before pressing it again, and then saying "Fuck it," before running towards the stairs, bounding down all six flights.

***

After having a quick look around to make sure that the supply room staff were all on their rounds, Harry burst into the women's bathroom. Choosing this place was a smart move on her part, since the supply room didn't have any female employees, but he still felt a tiny thrill at the idea of getting caught in the middle of this grandiose gesture. When he saw Veronica standing in the middle of the bathroom smiling, though, that thrill was replaced by a greater one.

"Congratulations," she said, slinking up to him and removing her glasses.

"Nunberg told me what you did," Harry said. "I swear... I didn't know what to think the entire time. Part of me suspected..."

"I know," Veronica said, "and I'm so sorry. At first, I thought things were going alright, but then he got his hands on some files that I didn't have a chance to sneak out for you, and Reg had his secretary watching me like a hawk. Even if he suspected that I wasn't on board with his idea, if he could keep me from you, it would bother you. I could tell, if he'd thought I wasn't on board with his idea, he'd have threatened my job, so I lied and said I was tempted by the idea of moving upwards in the company." She slipped her hands underneath his blazer and wrapped her arms around him, almost clawing his back in the process. "I hated myself for saying it. And you had no idea how much I wanted to do this."

"That bastard," Harry said, putting his hands on her hips. "I'm sorry you got brought into it that way."

"I would have let him fire me," Veronica said, pressing her head against his chest, and running her fingertips up and down his back. "I would have done it in two seconds if I hadn't thought there was some way I could help from his office, but the longer it went on, the more it looked like there really wasn't anything I could do. He had the files right there, copies of all of them and some of the originals so that you couldn't get them."

"How did you get to Nunberg?" Harry asked, carressing her hips as he traced his thumb around the waistline of her skirt.

"That was part of why I pretended to be on board with the idea," Veronica said, as she brought her hands back to Harry's front and began to undo his buttons. "Reg wanted to get some idea which way Nunberg would go on your presentation, but he wanted to be discreet, so he sent me to drop off some paperwork, rather than going himself or sending his own secretary. I wanted to get Nunberg suspicious of Reg, but I didn't know how to do it. It was like swimming with a pirhanas." Her fingers parted his shirt and she began to trace lines from his chest down to his belly button. "Nunberg seemed to like your enthusiasm, so I couldn't tell him the presentation wasn't your idea to begin with. But he also seemed noncommittal on whether or not he believed your argument. He went into that meeting totally prepared to be swayed either way."

"Wow," Harry said. "I'm glad it worked out."

"So am I," she said, and looked up at him with big eyes suddenly. "But the days before were driving me mad, Harry. I couldn't go back and dissuade Reg, he would have gotten suspicious, and he had such a hard-on for what he was going to do. I never realized it, Harry, but he was nervous about all the good work you were doing lately."

"I never realized it either," he said, leaning down to kiss Veronica on her forehead, as his hands took a grip on Veronica's skirt and started to gently pull it down.

"Mmmm," she purred, looking up at him, changing her posture so that the skirt would slip down easier, and she leaned in and kissed him on the chest. "Near the end, I took a chance and tried to tell Reg about how hard you were working, but that only convinced him that the victory would be sweeter. It was so odd, Harry, seeing him. It was like he was out of his mind."

"Well," Harry said, smiling. "I guess that's what happens when you want the power. If you don't want the power, you end up like me."

"Like you?" Veronica asked. "What does that mean? You're fine the way you are, and I wouldn't change our work relationship for anything." She brought her fingers down to his waistline, and started unbuckling his belt. Harry, who'd begun playing with the buttons on her blouse, suddenly stopped.

"What?" she asked, sensing his hesitation.

"Well," he said. "Our work relationship might be changing regardless."

"Why?" she asked. "What's wrong?"

"Nunberg offered me an interview for a project working with the senior strategists," he said.

"He did?!" Veronica exclaimed. "That's fantastic!" She jumped up and threw her arms around him, and kissed his cheek ferociously as he held her in the air.

"But I thought you left the other job because of the responsibility," he said. "I was feeling guilty with all the work you were doing as it was. It would only get busier."

"Harry," she said, as she brought her head back so she was face-to-face with him. "Do you know what it's like, having me do all those things for you in the office, knowing that you're so close, to be able to smell you, feel your eyes on my body, and yet not be able to touch you?" She gave him a kiss that ended with her biting his lip until it hurt.

"Ow!" he said. "Are you mad or something?"

"Oh God no," she said. "It's the greatest aphrodisiac in the world. It makes being with you now that much more exciting. You don't even want to know the mileage I've put on my vibrator since I started this job." She paused, smirking at him, and then shifted her eyes downward. "I'm going to get you ready, and then we're going to fuck on this tile floor like there's no tomorrow, alright?"

"Um, yes," he said. "Yes, I think that's agreeable."

"Good," she said, and with a couple of skillfull moves she was out of her blouse and bra, exposing her breasts, but keeping on her panties and stockings. Then, she was squatting before him, her knees on the outside of his legs, those breasts pressed against his thighs, and with one arm gripping his ass firmly for support, she used her free hand to undo his pants and then lower them. Then she slipped a hand inside the fold of his underwear, and produced his cock, standing as firm as he'd ever known it to. She pressed her lips against the head, and then took it deep into her mouth, closing her eyes as though it were doing her more pleasure to give than for him to receive. She kept it deep inside her mouth, and Harry felt the warm, wet tickling of her tongue all along the base of his shaft. Then she pulled back, and the coldness of the bathroom made his cock twitch, and she giggled as it moved.

"Oh, God, that's great," he said. "Put it in your mouth again, will you?"

"Sure!" she said, looking up with a smile, before grabbing one of his hands and putting it on the back of her head. "You know what to do. Not too hard, though. I don't want you to come before I've had a chance to fuck you proper."

"Whatever," he said, and grabbing a fistfull of her hair in a way that made her say "Oh!" in a pleasantly surprised way, he thrust out his pelvis towards her face, straight into her mouth. "Mmm!" she mumbled pleasurably, and he began to rock back and forth as she squatted there. Out of the corner of his vision he could see one of her hands going down between her legs to massage her vagina, and it made him so hot that he had to fight off the impulse to come by bringing up something that had been nagging away at his brain since the meeting.

"There's just one thing I'd love to know," Harry said.

After pulling back to let his cock fall free, Veronica let out a couple of deep breaths as she brought up her hand to jerk him off, so she could respond. "What's that?"

"McMaster & McMaster," Harry said. "Reg has to have been here long enough to have known about that account."

Veronica shrugged. "I doubt it would have made a difference. Your breakdown showed that, didn't it?"

"Yeah," Harry said. "But still... I don't know."

"Boy," she said, as she took a firmer grip on his penis, "I should tell you how impressed I was with that report, by the way. I was sure I could trust you to do your best, but even that was above and beyond..."

"Maybe," Harry said, looking down at her, watching her breasts dangle freely. The feeling that he might erupt at any second started up, so he kept on with the distraction. "But even so, for Reg not to have known about McMaster & McMaster, I mean, that's quite the screw-up."

"Well, that one might not be entirely his fault," Veronica said, and then coughed, before smiling up at him sweetly.

That took Harry a second. "You didn't."

She shrugged her shoulders, before leaning in to take one of his testacles in her mouth and suck on it.

"But you were so shocked in the meeting," Harry said, trying to fight off the pleasure. "And you slapped him for trying to blame his mistake on you. Didn't you?"

She took her mouth off his balls to purse her lips and raise an eyebrow. "But it was his mistake," she said. "He should have never thought I'd be disloyal to you."

"Why," Harry said, as one of her tugs caused him to close his eyes for a second before completing the thought. "Why are you doing this? Why me?"

"Because from the moment I met you I could read your soul in your eyes, Harry," she said. "It's beautiful, and kind, and desperate to play." Then she looked down. "Plus, I like your cock." She jerked it a couple of times almost painfully to punctuate her point, but Harry suddenly couldn't stop himself, and he opened his mouth to moan.

Veronica realized what was happening. "Nice," she said sarcastically, before wrapping her mouth around his cock and deep-throating it completely. Harry took a firm grip on her hair again and fucked her mouth so violently that he feared he might choke her, but suddenly he couldn't even think, and the sensation was building inside into an uncontrollable pressure, and when he closed his eyes it was as though he were rushing to the edge of space, lifting, lifting... And then he shook, and let out a yell, and then he shook again, and again, each explosive pulse emptying into her, each shot followed by its own lessening shout of disbelief, until he was fully spent, standing before her, and she pulled her head off his cock, licked her lips, and then looked up and said, "You asshole."

"I'm sorry," he said, with the biggest, stupidest grin of his life adorning his face. "I'm so sorry."

"Liar," she said. "Well, fine, you've just made enough racket that somebody's going to wonder what was going on, so you'd better get out there while I fix up." She laughed. "You bastard."

"I'll make it up to you," he said, in a semi-trance. "I'll do something for you."

"I was waiting a week for that, you know," she said.

"I'll think of something," he said, as he lifted up his pants and began to fix his buckle. Suddenly, there were footsteps outside, and Veronica let out a peep as she bundled her clothes into her hands and dove for a nearby stall.

There was a knock at the door. "Hello?" A man's voice.

"Hey man," Harry said. "Sorry, I'll be out in a second."

There was a pause. "Buddy," the voice said. "This is the lady's room."

"I know, I know," Harry said. "It, uh, it couldn't wait."

"Well, alright," the voice said. "Just do a favour and courtesy flush for whoever has to go in there after you."

Veronica let out a barely audible snort.

"Yeah, sure," Harry said, going into Veronica's stall as she was threading her arms into her blouse. When she looked up at him, he gave her a kiss on the lips.

She took it, but then gave him a little slap. "You owe me," she said.

"I know," he said, smiling, then leaned past her and flushed the toilet, before turning to leave the stall and then the washroom, his mind already a jumble as he began to wonder what was in store for the two of them, now that the obstacles had been removed, the trust was there, and a wide-open future lay ahead.

That night, when he got home, he didn't bother trying to conceal the good news from his wife, even though much of it involved his infidelity. She seemed visibly surprised.

"When is the interview?" Trish asked.

"I guess sometime soon," Harry said. "I have to arrange something with the people, and the company's busy with a lot of other stuff. There's also no real guarantee, I suppose."

"Oh," she said. "But the presentation went well, I guess?"

"Yeah!" he said excitedly. "Yeah, it really did. All the work paid off."

"Well, that's great," she said, smiling. She came over and gave him a hug. It was strange, almost like a hug between friends, but with her in close he briefly felt a flicker of the desire for her that once consumed him. She was a tall woman with broad shoulders, and contact with her had such a great contrast than that with Veronica, just because Trish's stature was so much larger. In fact, he couldn't help but compare notes about how different they were when they were close to him. Trish could rest her chin on his shoulder as she was doing now, her arms could wrap around his neck without needing him to slouch over, and her breasts, although maybe just a little smaller than Veronica's while still being large in their own right, seemed to engulf him more because they pressed into his chest while Veronica's came just above his belly. And Trish still smelled absolutely great. What was also strange, though, was that even though his own affection for Trish had only tapered off slightly since learning of her affair with Jack, the depth of his feeling for Veronica had grown so much that he couldn't help but be surprised how much it compared in memory to what he felt in the proximity with his own wife right now. He let out an ironic laugh at the turn of events.

"What?" Trish asked, as she leaned back, loosening her hug but not taking her hands off his shoulders. "Was there something funny on your mind?"

"Oh, nothing," Harry said. He leaned in to give Trish a kiss on the cheek, and she stuck her face forward to accept it. "I'm going to go have a beer."

"Alright..." she said hesitatingly, letting go of him and watching him go to the kitchen.

"Can I get you anything?" he called out to her, walking down the hall.

"No, that's fine," he heard from behind, and he turned into the kitchen entrance and made a line straight for the fridge, feeling a strange urge to get a little drunk. He hadn't done that much despite having lived in this house for so long, maybe a couple of times soon after the incident at Jack's house, and maybe a dozen times in total before that. But this was a special occasion, and he felt like he was on the verge of a proper celebration as he open the fridge door, leaned in, and grabbed a beer, popping it and taking a swig before he even closed the door. It tasted great. Not champagne, but maybe he'd do that with Veronica later on if he got the job. Hell, he laughed, maybe he'd do that anyway. He owed her that much.

As he stepped back and leaned against the counter, folding one arm around himself and taking another long sip, he could see through the doorway Trish's studio. It was the spare bedroom, and since they weren't in danger of having kids anytime soon and nobody ever came to visit, she just announced a few months earlier that she'd like to use it for her photography, and he shrugged and told her to go for it. He walked over to the studio, looked inside and saw some of the prints, and they were pretty nice. A couple of the black and white ones looked really professional, and it got his mind racing.

He was playful, Veronica had said. He hadn't ever thought of himself like that before, but suddenly the ideas running around in his mind were definitely of the playful variety.



Rebuilding Harry Ch. 05



"Hello," came Veronica's slightly tired voice through the intercom of the apartment building.

"Hey you," said Harry, shuffling on the spot in the cold.

"Harry?" she asked. "What are you doing here?"

"Surprised?" he asked.

"No, it's just..." she said. "How did you find me?"

"I have your address on file," he said. "Is that okay?"

"Oh, sure..." she said. "What's up?"

"Not much," he said. "Say, can you let me in? It's cold out here."

"Oh, yeah," she said hurriedly, and the buzz sounded out. Harry let himself in and went straight for the elevator, more than eager to get to the room just to get her reaction to his idea, blowing into his fingers to warm them up as he waited for the elevator. It was a tall apartment building -- over a dozen stories, which was about as big as they got in Hellespont -- and she lived right near the top. He was afraid of heights, but when he found out her floor part of him liked the idea of her being high up, thinking it might make for some good visuals. After the elevator took him up to her floor -- a ride that, in his excitement, seemed to take way too long -- the doors parted, and he walked briskly down the hall to his right, getting a couple of doors down before realizing he had to double back because he'd gone the wrong way. The frustration bugged him -- he wanted to be in Veronica's place now.

The door was slightly ajar when he got there, and Veronica was standing there with her hair completely mussed, dressed in nothing but a long sweater and kicking on some slippers. She looked up at him and smiled tiredly, opening the door to step out and receive his kiss. "Hey gorgeous," she said. "Sorry about my state. I like to sleep in on Saturdays."

"That's alright," he said, kicking off his own shoes before stepping into her apartment. It was a good place for a university student, with a large living room, wall-to-wall white carpeting and nice furniture, a decor fashioned with the aesthetic of someone who was both living frugally but also blessed with superior taste. "Your place is really nice."

"Feng shui," she said. "Want some coffee?"

"That'd be great," he said, walking into the living room, over to the table by the balcony, whereupon sat a large number of law textbooks. Part of his heart melted at that -- she worked so hard for him in the office, harder than most of the other secretaries there, and yet here she was with her own goals to meet. He decided at that point that one of the first things he'd do if he got that job would be to ensure a nice raise for her.

"What brings you here? Where does Trish think you are?" she asked, with the sounds of coffee-related kitchen manipulations in the background.

"At my office, taking photographs of it just in case I have to move out in a hurry," Harry said.

"Taking photographs?" she asked. He heard her finish pouring the water before coming out to give him a strange look. "Why would you be doing that?"

"I don't know," he said, turning around. "I just needed a reason to borrow this." He held up his wife's digital camera, giving it a little shake.

Veronica crossed her arms, stuck out her hip as she shifted her weight, and grinned in mock disapproval. "I hope that's for the view. I'm not decent."

"Oh come on," he said. "It'll be fun. I thought you liked to play."

"Pass it here," she said, walking forward with her hand outstretched. Coffee trickled in the kitchen as she studied it, pressing a few buttons and examining the screen on back. "This is pretty nice."

"Isn't it?" he asked. "I've got the manual right here, too." He patted his coat pocket. "I bought a couple of new memory cards on the way here, and the thing says it'll be able to hold a ton of photographs. It even does video."

She looked up at him, wide eyes. "What did you have in mind?"

"How about that coffee?" he asked grinning.

"Get it yourself, jackass," she said. "It's Saturday, and I want to see what this thing can do."

He laughed, and walked past her towards her kitchen. She quickly snapped a photo of his back, and when he turned to her, he saw she was examining the photo on the screen, and smiling. "Hey," she said, looking up. "Throw me your manual, will you?"

"Alright," he said, pulling it out and tossing it towards her. She caught it adeptly in her free hand, and went over to the sofa.

"How do you like your coffee?" he asked from inside the kitchen after fishing out a couple of mugs from her cabinets. They were meagerly stocked as well. It seemed almost unfair. This was the first time he'd had to accept her as someone with a life separate and distinct from the office, but she seemed like the sort of person who ought to have parties at her place on a regular basis. Not that he was fond of the idea of the male law students getting drunk in her house, but at the same time, she was young and deserved that sort of life, if she wanted it.

"Like I like my men," she called out.

He peared around the barrier separating the kitchen from the living room. "I hope you mean white and sweet."

"Oh," she said, pretending to be flustered. "Sure! That's right. White. Sweet. Absolutely." She laughed. "Actually, I'd like it black, but please don't be offended."

"No, that's alright," he said. "Hussy."

She laughed, and when he came out of the office with their coffee she looked up at him. "This thing is pretty neat. We can set the timer for up to a minute if we want, and it'll give warning beeps." She looked around the living room. "I think I've got a few places in here that would make for good angles, and the light from outdoors is okay."

"That's cool," he said. "How do you feel about black and white?"

"Nice..." she said, nodding her head thoughtfully. "Of course, a minute might be a long time, so I hope you have a fluffer."

"Oh, I don't need one of those," he said, handing over the coffee. "If I'm having trouble keeping it up, I'll just think of my wife."

She bit her lip scornfully, but then she just nodded and said, "Actually, the fluffer would be for Glenn. He's the one posing with me, right? Which reminds me, I should go wake him up."

"I hope Glenn can fly," Harry said, leaning in close to give her a nibble on the ear. "Because he's leaving via the balcony."

"Neanderthal," she said, before giving a giggle and squirming away from him. "Okay, okay, seriously... if we're going to do this, what are the ground rules?"

"Ground rules?" he asked. "No clothes, for one."

"Ha ha," she said. "Although I think it might be sexy if we got some photos before we undressed completely. But I mean it. What are the ground rules?"

"I don't know," Harry said. "What did you have in mind?"

"Well," Veronica said. "You're married. This means they can't go up on a website, am I right?"

"Oh, those ground rules..." he said, leaning back in the sofa. Veronica curled up next to him, lifting her legs and putting them on his lap, while she continued to glance back and forth from the manual to the camera. Harry put his arms around her, and he felt a sudden tenderness for her, that he decided to be impulsive.

"Do whatever you want with them," he said.

"What?" she asked, a little surprised. "What are you saying?"

"Do whatever you want," he said. "I trust you."

"Oh, Harry..." she said, looking up at him with a wide smile. She stared at him for a while, before saying, "I'm not insecure about your wife, you know. To be honest, it's sort of a relief that we have separate lives. I'm not looking to break anything up."

"Me neither," he said. "I'm comfortable with exactly what we have."

"Me too," she grinned. "I mean, I know I can't be a secretary forever, but this thing..." She circled the finger between them. "This? I could live with this for a long time."

"Good," he said, "then it's settled. No ground rules."

"Well," she said, "maybe we ought to have a couple. Nothing on the internet. Nothing for sale."

"Okay, fine," he said. "Any more?"

"Yes," she said. "If there's a good one, it's going on my bedroom wall."

"Alright," he said.

"And..." she said. "If we take a video... I want to be able to watch it on my office computer whenever I want."

"Quid pro quo?" he asked.

"Of course," she said. "I'd be insulted if you didn't."

"Good," he said. "So... what's left?"

She smiled. "I want a shower first, and for the photos I have in mind, I think I want my hair to be dry."

"Okay," he said, leaning in to grab her around the waist. "How about a quickie?"

"You had your quickie yesterday!" she protested, wriggling out of his grasp and walking past him to her bedroom. "Just watch the football game or something. There's beer in the fridge. Just leave your coffee wherever."

Harry sighed as he got up to grab a beer from the fridge, turning the television on straight away. He sulked over the rejection, but then realized that it would be tempting the wrath of the gods to dare negotiate for immediate sex when he was being offered football, with the promise of sex later on, as an alternative. Still, as though she'd sensed his thoughts, Veronica leaned out from the bedroom, holding a very skimpy towel over herself so that it barely covered her breasts and hips, and said, "I am flattered, though."

"Go on, hurry!" he said.

"Oh, yeth thir!" she said ditsily, skipping to the bathroom, unable to conceal her toned rear end as the edges of the towel flapped behind her. He stared at it admiringly, and when she turned around to close the door, she gave a mischievous smile.

He wondered why, until he found that he could hear moans coming from the shower as the opening kickoff was underway on the television.

***

The first photo was of her, walking into the apartment, wearing her business attire and glasses. They thought about sexing it up, but opted instead for very plain underwear, a typical blouse, skirt and blazer routine that she often sported -- and still looked stunning in -- as well as her hair tied back into a top knot, and of course, the usual pair of glasses. They fought for a bit over the idea of her wearing high heels, and finally she relented and said she would, so long as she could wear her decoy wedding ring, and have a couple of shots that showed both his and hers, as if creating the fantasy that they were married. He faked hesitency, really not having any problem pretending that she was his wife. In fact, for a while, as they discussed and planned the photos that they wanted to take, there was a partnership there that made him yearn slightly for more than what they had. Still, he shelved it long enough to take the photo of her, walking into the apartment after a long day, with an exhausted look on her face as leaned down to remove the first of her high heels, in an exquisite black and white shot.

The second shot was of him. She wanted him in the corner of the room, staring at her, almost like a stalker, his eyes fixated on her but with a blank expression on his face. They had to balance the camera on a stand that she brought out from her bedroom, which was waist high and required some work with napkins to get it to tilt upwards. In the foreground was the site of her curving hip, while in the background he stood there, staring at her. They set the timer, and once they'd arranged everything, it took longer than either thought it would. At one point she said, "Don't flinch, whatever you do, you look hot right now." He nodded, but then she grinned, then tilted her head back and ran her tongue over her top lip, her eyes full of lust, and it was all he could do to keep from breaking out into laughter before the second shot was snapped.

The third was a shot of her at the couch, in her stocking feet this time, looking at the newspaper that had heretofore been lying there. The light would be coming in mostly from outdoors, so they'd be silhouetted, and a test shot she'd taken looked pretty artsy, but it was a difficult shot to coordinate, because she'd wanted to be caught in a pose where she was sticking her chest out to accentuate her figure, while he was seen walking towards her, but still a few feet away at the time of the snapshot. Also, he had to keep the same look of intensity, while she was looking luscious but quite oblivious to the fact that she was about to be jumped. She also had this comical way of holding the newspaper with one hand while bringing the other to her mouth, as if studying newspapers was something best done while tonguing a finger. Still, they got it on the first shot.

For the fourth, they moved the camera over to the table that served as the indicator of the apartment's dining room, and the point of view was from the other side this time. He'd just caught up to her, and was while they were both still upright, he was leaning into her, his visible hand taking a soft yet forboding grasp of her hip, as she looked around to meet his gaze. Being as voluptuous as she was, it was impossible to keep her left breast out of the photo, but the right one was quite invisible, and this time he teased her by taking full hold of with his right hand, pinching her nipple through the blazer, while she looked back at him with what was supposed to be a blank look on her face as the grope happened outside of the shot. She held her expression, though, until the camera went off, when she turned and slapped him, hard, on the shoulder, with an annoyed smile on her face.

After some playful banter, they got ready for the fifth shot, which required the stand to be set up right near the sofa and angled upward again. This time, instead of prolonging the spooned embrace, he was to rip off the band holding her top knot in place with one hand, while with the other pressing down on her back so she was forced to lean into the wall. She had her hands out against it, to create the impression she was trying to keep from being forced into the wall, and her head was tilted back, a shocked look on her face, as her rear-end stuck straight out into his pelvis, as though he were trying to force himself on her already through their clothes, when it was quite the opposite by the time the shot was taken, where she was even slightly wiggling her ass around his hardening erection.

The next shot was to be from underneath, on the cushion of the sofa they were leaning over. This time, her hair would be loose and falling around her face. Her head was still tilted back but she was no longer trying to look at him, instead biting her lip ambiguously. His right hand had a full grip on her breast as his left struggled with the buttons of her blouse. His face was barely visible over her shoulder, and her own hands were propped against the wall still, bent at an angle to suggest she was about to fall over. When the photo was snapped, it was uneven and showed very little of her face except for her lips and the lower rim of her glasses, but it had a great view of his grappling with her bust, and after looking at it she announced happily that this was the best one yet.

The next photo was from a distance, with the camera sitting on the table just near the kitchen, as she was now completely without her blazer and her blouse was ripped off, although hanging from her waist where it had been tucked under the skirt. She'd turned around by now and was staring at him, but her hands were on his shoulders, not looking like she was fending him off but not looking like she was embracing him, either. This time, his hand held her glasses off to the side, in a casual throwing-away gesture.

The session continued, with the same awkward pauses between shots as they set the timer and arranged themselves hurriedly. The eighth was of him squatting below her, having pulled her skirt down as she stood before him, her hands covering her stomach in a sort of bashfullness. The next was of him removing his own sweater, while standing in a position that blocked her way out. The next was of him pushing her towards the dining room table, his pants no longer on but still in his boxer shorts, a raging hard-on poking itself straight out, while she had a look of helplessness on her face. The next shot that they got was of her being held down against the table, her ass sticking out as one hand fought with her bra and the other sought to move her panties, exposing her vagina to him, her face in wider shock now as she looked back at him over her shoulder. The last one was taken from directly ahead of her on the table, as his own boxers were down around his ankles, and both of his hands were on her buttocks, as he appeared to have just penetrated her, while she arched her back to take it, pressing her now-bare breasts into the table, almost dragging them along the surface, with her eyes closed and a look of pleasure on her face.

Afterwards, as they looked through the pictures, Veronica was standing next to him, jerking him off with one hand and pressing the buttons of the camera with her other as he held it, at which point he proclaimed, "Okay, that's enough of that."

She looked up at him, smiling. "But I was having fun!" Her eyes widened when they met his, though, and he figured it was because he couldn't contain the look of desire in them as he stared down at her naked body standing next to his.

"Another time," he said.

She smiled even more deeply. "Okay, but I'm going to hold you to that."

He set the camera down and they started kissing, his hands caressing her hips as she continued to jerk him off. She looked down, and was about to go on her knees before him when he stopped her. "No," he said. "It's your turn."

"Oh?" she said, in pleasant shock.

"Yes," he said, and he took her by the hand over to the sofa, and directed her with his hands to sit down. She did, and then he knelt before her, and parted her legs to expose the most beautiful vagina he thought he'd ever seen. It was nicely shaved, and the lips had already swollen a little bit, and the contours around her clitoris were already exposing it a little. He kissed his way up one of her thighs from the knee, brought his mouth with an inch of her pussy to smell the earthy fragrance, and he watched her shift her pelvis and inhale, expecting him to take it in his mouth, when he instead kissed up her belly button to one of her breasts.

"You tease," she said, although she didn't seem to mind when he took her right nipple in his mouth. Instead, she inhaled sharply, and she brought her hands under to cup both her breasts and then lifted them up to his mouth, and he went back and forth between one and the other for a minute, listening to her breathing change with each time he sucked on the nipple tip, or pressed it between his teeth, or ran his tongue around the darkening aeriola before talking the nipple full into his mouth and sucking ferociously. She gasped once so suddenly that he thought she was in pain, and he stopped and looked up.

"You okay?" he asked.

"Yeah," she laughed down at him, bringing a hand to ruffle his hair. "But I'm not lactating, you know. Nothing's going to come out, no matter how hard you try." He laughed, and resume sucking on her breasts again, his hands rubbing her thighs. "Although I wish I were right now," she added.

"Why?" he asked after taking his mouth away.

"Because I think that would be really, really hot," she said, forcing him back into her breasts with her hands. At this point, though, he began to move down again, kissing the line from her cleavage along her flat stomach to her belly button, and then further down still, until his chin was touching her pubic hair. He looked up at her then, and she was staring at him with her mouth open and her pupils dilating, her hair slightly mussed with a look of passion on his face that gave him a bit of a thrill. He then tucked his head down and placed his tongue flat on her vagina, bringing it up slowly from the base of it right to the clitoris, which his tongue then circled, all the while watching her gaze at him. Finally, she couldn't stand it anymore and closed her eyes, and leaned back against the sofa, sticking her chest out. With his left hand, he reached up and grabbed her breast, a move she instantly greeted by grabbing his hand with her own as he felt her, squeezing it. He brought his right hand to her crotch, licked his index fingertip and stroked her vaginal lips, all the while kissing whatever part of her pussy wasn't being touched by his finger.




Rebuilding Harry Ch. 05



"God," she said. "It's like there's two tongues." She grabbed his left hand with both of hers and took it off her breast, bringing it up to her mouth to suck on his fingers. He looked up at her as she did this, and it was a remarkable sight, her full lips wrapped around his index and middle finger. She looked down at him then, and bit down, exposing her teeth, to which he responded by licking the length of his middle finger and inserting it into her pussy with his palm upwards.

"Oh shit!" she said, as he brought it in and out, curling the middle finger upwards and a bit back to stroke the roof of her cunt. She let go of his hand entirely, and he brought it down to rest it on her pelvis, pressing the flat of it against her skin, so that as he circled his penetrated middle finger it traced the outline of his palm. She gasped at this, and arched her back suddenly, bringing herself up, before grabbing his hair with her hands and forcing his face straight onto her clitoris.

"Press it between your lips," she said. "Tongue it, but don't suck it, and don't use your teeth." He obliged, and elicited a moan of excitement from her as she leaned back again, lifting her ass off the ground and pressing her pussy into his face. Then she settled back again, and didn't move as he worked his mouth and fingers except to circle her hips only slightly, dictating the pace of penetration and contact with her clitoris. Her hands played with his hair, and she made noises of pleasure that gradually grew louder and louder. Soon she took her hands away and started to fondle her breasts, this time pressing her pussy into his face even harder with each circling motion of the hips, and he looked up to see her staring down at him, only not so much focused on him but through him, as though she were blacking out with her eyes still open. He kept his mouth on her clitoris the entire time, controlling it with his tongue and gradually accelarating the pace himself. Her thighs suddenly started to twitch as she increased the speed, saying, "Oh... Oh God... Oh... Oh... OHHH...!!" before letting out an absolute wail as she convulsed once, then again, then again, not stopping until she'd done it six times, at which point she brought her pelvis back from his face, and sighed a long sigh.

Except that he wasn't done, and buried his face back in there again, which got a "Holy fuck!" as he began recreating the exact motions that had brought about her first orgasm. Trying to oblige, she started circling her hips again but couldn't maintain the motion dextrously, but he did it with the use of his hands as they continued their penetrate and massage action, all the while stimulating the clitoris and giving her a second full orgasm, one that came quickly and lasted for seven convulsions this time. When it subsided, she collapsed all her weight to the side, and sighed heavily, before Harry tried to coax a third from her.

"Ah!" she gasped, slapping his shoulders. "No, no, not now. Later..."

He leaned back from his kneeling position until his weight was on his heels. "Shucks," he said.

She looked at him in disbelief. "That's the first time that's ever happened!" she snapped at him, grinning exhaustedly. "To happen that quickly... and twice! No, not know. Maybe I've got more in me later." She curled her naked body against the sofa, bringing her legs up onto it, the weight of her breasts pointing her grossly enlarged nipples towards the floor as she leaned to the side. She closed her eyes and smiled, before opening them again.

"Wait a second!" she said. "What about you?" She looked down at his now half-erect cock. "How's your buddy there?"

"He's fine," he said. "Take a rest."

"Mmmm," she said. "Alright, but I've got plans for afterwards. I want to get the video on that thing working, and then I want some footage of you and me sixty-nining, and then I want one of me riding you, and then I want-"

"Easy tiger!" he laughed, as he got up for the fridge to get another beer, not feeling at all bashful about walking around her apartment completely naked. When he came back, sat himself down on the floor and turned on the television, he felt her hand come over his shoulder stroke his chest.

"For now..." she said, drifting off. "Just a little rest..."

He twisted off the bottle cap and smiled.

***

Harry was watching the halftime show for the second afternoon game when she stirred, and reached over to place her hand on his stomach, and curling her fingers against his skin, she let out a soft, content moan at the touch of him. It had been a good enough game that he'd been happy to let her sleep, but at her waking touch, and then the subsequent shuffling of her body to put her mouth next to his ear, whereupon she parted her lips to nibble on his lobe, he immediately turned off the game. They didn't talk, only looked at each other and began kissing straight away.

His hands instinctively went to pleasure her, but the moment he did this she stopped kissing him, smiled, and shook her head. Then she stood up, wordlessly urging him to do the same. Before he was completely upright, though, she'd gone to the digital camera, fiddled with a couple of buttons and removed the memory card, putting the fresh one in that they'd left on the windowsill. He stood there, watching her with a smile on his face - he'd always been a little intimidated by those who had good technical knowlege, so seeing Veronica putting that skill to work was both humbling and exciting. Before long, she'd placed the camera on the table and turned it towards the sofa, and she walked back over, her naked form briefly covered with the orange light of the afternoon sun as she crossed the center of the living room. She was mesmerizing, and it wasn't until her hands were on him again that he came to life from under her spell. "We have fifteen minutes," she said, kissing his chest, "before it runs out."

Her fingers went down, took a grip on his cock and began to stroke it, all as she tilted her head back, inviting his kiss and pressing her breasts into his gut. He kissed her, gently, as his own hands traced the outline of her shoulders, before dipping down to her waist and then coming back up to gently cup her bust. She moaned a little at that, getting up on tiptoe and arching her back into his fondling of her, before she squatted down and took his cock into her mouth, bending it a little to the side so that the camera would catch the profile of her face as she started to retract and then smother his shaft rythymically. At first, it felt a little strange to know that this was being taped, until he felt her free hand travelling up the inside of his legs to caress his balls, and that made it impossible for him to think about anything but the immediate sensation.

Before he got too into it, however, she had stopped, and went over to the camera to stop taping, before bringing it over to nightstand next to the sofa, where she angled it towards the center cushion, and then turned it on again. He stood there by the sofa, waiting, and she came back to him, bent down below him in the pose she had before, and then, after blowing him for a few seconds, she broke off and stood up slowly, kissing his body along the way, but always keeping a firm grip on his dick, pumping courteously. With her other hand, though, she pushed him down onto the sofa so that he was lying lengthwise on it, and then she walked around beside his head, before lifting herself up and over him to sit on his face, facing his temporarily neglected cock. He lay there, waiting to be smothered by her pussy, and when she pressed it into his face, and then lowered herself to take his cock into her mouth at the same time, he began to go a little wild. Suddenly his fingers were in her again, but at this angle it was difficult to stimulate her g-spot, so he eventually contented himself by burrowing his tongue into her vagina, simultaneously massaging her clitoris with his chin as much as he could. As she writhed atop him, he felt the warmth of her mouth all over his cock and it made him want to take her, even though he knew she was the director for this show. The camera was on the other end of the couch, and he could picture the image it must have been capturing, of her bent over his body, the cleavage of her breasts as they pressed onto his stomach, her hair tumbling onto his thighs, her beautiful face serene as she fellated him. The more it went on, the more torturing it became, and it made him want to quicken the pace and fuck her hard, but she had such a commanding touch on him right there that he felt himself compelled to go along with what she was choreographing for the camera.
Then her pelvis lifted up off his face as she got up from him, and he watched her go over to the camera again and place it this time on her loveseat, angling it up slightly, and when she came back he saw that she had this look in her eyes of quiet joy about what they were doing. She then mounted him in a sixty-nine again, only to get up quickly, and then guide him to an upright position on the sofa. He wasn't sure what to do but she'd quickly coordinated a new position, where she was facing away from him, her knees on either side of him and her thighs spread at an almost painful angle, as she then slowly lowered herself onto his cock, the dampness of her pussy making it a very easy entry. She then started to ride him that way, and the feeling was so good that he almost felt like he had to say something about it, but he realized then that so far neither of them had seemed to be making much noise in this enactment, so he kept quiet. Veronica, however, was definitely breathing a little heavier as she got more and more intense with her gyrations, and soon she was altering it, changing the angle for a moment, and then twisting her waist in a circle, hunched over a little in a way that Harry imagined must have made her breasts hang in a pleasingly heavy way not too far above him own knees. He took his eyes off her wonderful ass and shut them, imagining what it was that the camera must be seeing right then, and at that point he felt himself go over. Suddenly, the rising pressure began deep below, and his breathing became heavier as he started to increase the pace of the fucking.

Veronica then got up quickly, went over to the camera and placed it on the nightstand again, only this time shifting it and extending the zoom, as she motioned for him to stand up, which he did, grasping his shaft to prolong the moment before ejaculation. Then she rushed back and kneeled before him, sucking on his cock immediately, from a high enough angle that, when she cupped her breasts and lifted them up, then were practically touching his tightening balls. His hands went into her hair, but he didn't want to push her down and force himself in her -- instead, he wanted her to completely control the entire moment, which she did, masterfully. In a second the rush came, and he felt himself shake as his first ejaculation shot right into her mouth, quickly followed by several more, and with his eyes closed the whole time he could only imagine how beautiful her face looked in that camera's lens as he exploded into her.

Soon enough he'd finished, and she lifted her head off his shaft, looking up at him and smiling. She then got up, licked a little excess semen from the corner of her mouth, and went over to the camera, and picked it up. She fiddled with the buttons for a second, and then looked at him and smiled. "Good thing I timed that well," she said. "We had about ten seconds to go."

"That was fifteen minutes, eh?" he asked. "Wow."

"Why? Did it seem slow?" she asked. She put the camera back down and slinked over to him.

"Well, uh..." he said. "You know, I don't really know."

She smiled as she slipped her arms around his waist and hugged him. "I can't wait to get this thing put together... a little music in the background... what do you think of jazz?"

"Jazz? Sure," he said. "That'd be awesome. What did you have in mind?"

"Oh, I don't know," she said, as her hands began to work their erotic ministrations on him again. "I'll have to see the video put together first. Which reminds me, the camera probably came with some software. Can you try to sneak it in for me from your house?"

"No problem," he said.

"Good," she said, "What do you want to do now?"

"Well," he said, feeling almost a little guilty that the thought of bringing reality back into the scenario, "I should probably be heading home soon."

"Oh," she said, pouting. "But, uh, don't you think you ought to grab a shower to clean yourself off? I'm sure we smell quite strongly of each other."

"Sure," he said, smiling down at her, "but time's getting a little short. We'd probably better save time and shower together."

"You're probably right," she said.



Rebuilding Harry Ch. 06



Veronica turned out to be pretty good with the video editing software, as Harry discovered the day after he brought it into work with the digital camera's memory card. That morning, she was away from her desk, but the coffee was waiting for him along with a note giving quick instructions on where to find the file. He booted the computer, and then proceeded to watch a ten minute montage of him and Veronica screwing like mad to a jazz background. She'd done a fantastic job mixing the music together, so that the pace of the tune seemed to follow their sex, and as he watched the close-up of him ejaculating into her beautiful mouth, the images in slow motion as a little bit of cum dripped down her serene face. He watched it a second time all the way through, enjoying how the light played off her naked body, how her breasts swayed as he fucked her, how she stared at him as though he were a god throughout it all. He found that a little funny, since every other time she'd been playful with him, not partaking of faux pornstar worship, but it was also kind of hot, and he enjoyed the idea that maybe this beautiful woman was putting him on a pedestal. With that thought, he felt the blood begin to rush downwards, and when the door opened again he had a rather large erection that he was about to announce to Veronica as she would walk through.

Except it wasn't Veronica. His draw dropped.

"Hi Harold," Trish said as she peaked in.

"Trish?" he said painfully. Out of the corner of his eye he could see that the video software was still open, and the final still of Veronica licking the tip of his cock as she looked up at him was plainly visible. However, the monitor was angled away from the door, and there wasn't any sound at this point. Still, if Trish came around to his side of the desk, which she might very well do because he wasn't quite ready yet to stand up to see her due to the recent arousal...

"I just thought I'd step in and see your office," she said, standing there, glancing around. Mercifully, she didn't step in.

"Yeah," he said, "I guess you haven't seen it in a while," he said. He tilted his head outdoors and saw that Veronica was back, calmly sitting at her desk, but not looking back. He brought his hand over to the computer mouse to close the video software. "Just let me kill this and I can show you-"

"Oh, don't get up," she said, walking slowly to the center of the office. She was wearing a sharp little outfit that hugged her figure well, and her curly hair was down. He suddenly got a strange moment of deja view, but he couldn't place it straight away. "I just wanted a quick gander. Yes, it's how I remember it."

"Uh, yeah," he said, as he clicked the mouse button, removing the image from the screen.

"Wouldn't make for interesting photos, though," she said, pursing her lip.

"What?" he asked.

"The photos you wanted to take of it," she said, giving him an appraising but unsuspicious look.

"Oh, right!" he said. The erection had died at this point, so he stood up to greet her. "Yeah, I know. I just wanted to have a few, just for the memories. Not that there are great memories of this office or anything." He cringed inwardly at the thought of that. Veronica was within earshot of their conversation. His eyes went out to her, but she hadn't reacted.

Trish smiled strangely at him, and then shrugged, her bosom heaving a little in the action. "I guess it's good to know what you've left behind," she said.

"Right," he said. "Look, can I have Veronica go get you a coffee or something?"

"Oh, no," she said. "I have to leave anyway. I was just passing by on the way to the grocery store."

"Well," he said, smiling awkwardly. "Thanks for stopping in."

"Maybe I can come by and see the new office?" she asked. "Which reminds me, when's that going to happen?"

"Oh," he said, "that's not for sure yet."

She gave him a strange look, and then opened her mouth to ask a question, before shaking her head and smiling broadly. "Alright," she said. "I'll see you at home."

Harry nodded and grinned. "Yeah! Great. I'll be bringing that camera home tonight, too." She nodded, and turned to the door. He watched her leave the room, and slowly crept to the door to see her tall, svelte figure amble over to the elevator. She turned her head back to the office to smile and wave. He waved back, and he let out a huge sigh as she stepped into the elevator.

"No great memories?" Veronica said pointedly from beside him as she continued typing away at her computer.

"Oh God, Veronica," he said. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean-"

"Relax, sir," she said, smiling like she was going to burst out laughing. "I'm sure you'll find a way to make it up to me later."

"Yeah," he said. "I'm going to go into my office and pass out."

"Need a massage?" she asked, looking up at him expectantly. "I'm guessing you're feeling kind of tense...?"

"Shit yeah," he said, and walked back in. Veronica dutifully followed him, closing the door behind them and then making her way around behind the chair that Harry slumped down into. "Fuck, that was close."

"Close how?" she said, as she placed her fingers on his shoulders and began to grip and rub them.

"I was looking at the video when she walked in," he sighed. "If she'd walked into the middle of the office, she'd have seen it."

"Oh my God!" Veronica laughed, and the grip on his shoulders tightened. He winced a little at the pain. "Was the sound on?"

"No," he said. "It'd just finished. I was going to play it a third time."

"Well," she said, as she resumed rubbing his shoulders. "I guess I must be a talented director, then."

"Oh, yeah," he said, distractedly. "The video was great."

She leaned in close to his ear, and her hair brushed the side of his face as she whispered, "The next one will be better."

"I'm sure," he said. He found that he was unable to enjoy the massage properly, so he put his hands on hers, gave them a squeeze, and said, "I'm totally sorry. I can't enjoy this properly right now. I'm a little freaked out."

"Oh," she said, surprised. "Alright. Anything I can do?"

"Yeah," he laughed. "Do you still have the memory cartridges from the digital camera?"

"Uh huh," she said.

"Great," he said. "Can you remove them from the camera and put them somewhere safe?"

Veronica laughed. "No problem," she said, and then strutted towards the door.

Harry shook his head and collapsed in his chair. The whirlwind of emotions going through him was intense. Veronica made him so happy, but he'd never considered that Trish would ever find out about it, just because her distinterest in him kept her completely separate from his work life for the last few years. But suddenly, there they were together, and the shock of it was almost too much. At that point, it hit home that Trish, who'd become almost like a stranger since his affair with Veronica began, was his wife again, the woman he'd known for so long, and the memories of it all were on the verge of rushing back in. He began to feel the two sides to himself, too, the older side that had fallen in love with Trish, and the new side which was now cheating on her, with a wonderful woman who...

...who was standing at his door with a worried look on her face.

"Harry?" she said.

"What is it?" he asked.

"The camera," she said. "It's gone." Her eyes were wide, and a little apologetic.

Harry's heart jumped.

***

An hour later, when he got home, he opened the door carefully and silently. He had no clue what to do, so he had Veronica cancel his appointments so he could try to get home and steal the cartridge out of her camera before she could see its contents. But in the car ride home, he replayed everything in that short conversation he had with her in his office. He'd practically telegraphed that he'd forgotten about the office photos, and if he couldn't have been any more suspicious if he'd tattooed Veronica's name on his forehead. Plus, he'd said he'd bring home the camera, but if she'd taken it with her and suspected nothing, she'd have told him.

At the moment he opened the door, though, his heart sank. He could hear Veronica's voice informing him that they had fifteen minutes of film, right at the beginning of the footage. He realized he'd arrived just too late, and suddenly there was a flurry in his stomach, of fear and guilt. What would he say? He hadn't imagined this entire thing was possible. He hadn't even rehearsed what he would have said about Veronica if she did find out. And what would he say? Would he bring up Jack? Would that make it all okay? And where would that conversation leave Veronica? Was he prepared to lose his wife?

"Relax," he said to himself, and he closed his eyes and breathed slowly. The deception was over. In a way, he thought, you should be relieved. He would go into the living room and confront his wife. He wouldn't keep anything from her about Veronica, and he'd tell her that it was time to end the charade of a marriage...

...and then he thought of himself, without Trish, and it made him worry even more. Sure, it had become a loveless marriage, but it was still a marriage, once founded on love, and only now, at the thought of losing her, did he realize that he still felt strongly for her. Was it still love? Did Veronica own that part of him now? He suddenly didn't know, and found himself walking rather slowly towards the living room, his soft footsteps not even making a sound on the carpet.

As he got closer, he could barely hear the noise of him and Veronica making love, and that made him shiver inside. The music that was in the video she'd edited together wasn't in this raw footage, and there was nothing really romantic about what he imagined was on the television screen. Just the stark, plainly obvious proof of his infidelity, and Veronica walking around to rearrange the camera. He'd thought they hadn't made much noise, but the camera had picked up plenty of sound anyway. It must have looked almost premeditated, and that idea made him almost feel regret for his wife, as though it might have seemed like he was bragging. He remembered how he felt after hearing her and Jack together, and if she felt even a fraction of that pain, it was more than a person deserved.

Still, as the sounds of his and Veronica's moans filled the hallway from the living room, he walked slowly, wanting to greet her only when the video footage was done. He waited outside the living room, his back against the wall, unable to see what was inside, but he could sense Trish's presence inside, and he grew more and more anxious as he wondered how she was reacting. He thought he could hear her breathing, and there was a tenseness to it that made him sigh inwardly. He closed his eyes as the sounds of Veronica and him building towards climax, before he could almost envision Veronica, kneeling before him, sucking him as her breasts pressed into his thighs, and finally receiving him as he came into her mouth.

Harry took a deep breath as the sound ended then, and from outside the living room he heard Trish stand up, and then walk over to what he assumed was the camera. He waited breathlessly to see if he could tell her reaction to it, and suddenly he was too paralyzed to walk in then like he'd planned. It was as though it were the last thing he'd wanted to do.

And then he heard Veronica's voice again, telling them that they had fifteen minutes of film.

Trish had restarted the video.

He couldn't move, completely transfixed by what he imagined was happening next door. He could see her face, totally in shock and appalled at what was happening before her eyes, and suddenly he could hear that Trish's breathing was deeper and more pained. It took him a few minutes to muster the courage to confront her, but finally he couldn't put it off anymore, and before the tape had a chance to run through a second time, he inhaled deeply, and came to the doorway of the living room.

And he saw his wife, sitting on the sofa, her shirt unbuttoned, her left hand massaging her right breast which she'd lifted free from her bra, and her right hand deep within her skirt, arching her back against the sofa, her hair falling loose on the cushions on either side, her eyes completely fixed on the screen, frigging herself as he and Veronica had sex on the camera. What's more, there was a look of lust on her face that Harry hadn't seen in years. He coughed at the sight.

It startled Trish, and she looked over immediately, surprised at the sight of him. She regained her composure quickly, though, and ran her hands through her mussed hair before leaning back against the sofa, looking exhausted. She fixed her bra but didn't do up her shirt, and she stared at the center of the floor, her mouth open and her eyes in a sort of shock.

Finally, she looked up at him, but didn't say anything. Harry himself was mesmerized by what he saw, and completely unable to comprehend it, and the best thing he could think to say was, "I guess we have a lot to talk about."

She let out a quick breath and then laughed once, before her smile dropped, and she bit her lip, looking at him with tired eyes.

"Oh, Harry," she said, breathlessly.

***

He sat down across from her as she got up to pause the camera playback. It unnerved him a little that the frozen image of him and Veronica was still on the television, but given the way Trish had taken to it he supposed it wasn't quite so perilous as he'd have imagined. Trish continued to sit there, slightly dishevelled, but not wanting to fix herself. She had a strange look on her face, something that was a mixture of satisfaction and sadness. He didn't really know what to say, so it was a relief when she boldly started it off.

"I've cheated on you too," she said, a little heavily.

"I know," Harry said, almost chuckling.

That got her attention. She tilted her head and studied him for a moment, but then she grinned and sunk even deeper into the sofa. "I suppose I wasn't exactly careful about it," she said.

"I never would have guessed," he said, "except for that answering machine message from him you left there."

"Answering machine message...?" she said slowly. "Did I forget to erase one?"

"Yeah," he said.

"I didn't think Jack had left anything scandalous on the machine," she said. "There were quite a few that I deleted that I later thought I could have safely left there."

"He called you 'babe' in it," Harry said, sinking a little at the remembering of it. "It bugged me."

"I can't remember that message. You deduced from that...?" Trish asked, raising an eyebrow.

"No," he said. "But I followed you."

She opened her mouth a little, and then smiled, revealing all her teeth. "What did you see?"

"Enough," Harry said darkly. "A part of me died that day."

"Oh..." Trish said, the glow on her face diminishing somewhat. She didn't say anything for a minute, until she waved a finger at the television screen. "If it's any consolation, our sex was never that good."

"Yours and Jack's?" Harry asked.

Trish shook her head. "It was alright, but nothing like that. The way she looks at you, Harry... My God."

"What about it?" he asked.

"It's so intense," she said, biting her lower lip quickly before continuing. "Don't you remember the way things were in university, when we first met? There were a few girls after you back then. I can still see the look on their faces when you would walk into the bar with the rest of your friends. They'd perk right up. Their eyes..."

Harry smiled at the thought of it. It was such a long time, and the memories had grown so weak, the vividness totally pushed out by those memories of him and Trish. He still remembered that time they met in that bar she was speaking of. There must have been a couple of girls who were attractive to him at that point, but he couldn't remember them at all. But the image of her standing up from her seat to go to the counter, so tall and elegant, so beautiful in a strangely older way even back then, it was still incredibly vivid. He was even beginning to remember the desire, that feeling in his stomach, something that almost scared him a little. And the immediate jealousy he felt for every other guy who was near her.

"You played it so well, too, back then," she said. "It took me a long time to get alone with you. It must have been weeks, and there was always some other girl hanging around, flirting with you..."

"Really?" he laughed. "I can't remember any of it."

"How about Tim?" she asked pointedly.

"Oh, I hated that son of a bitch," he laughed, remembering that friend of hers that had been pursuing her and rarely left her alone. "I remember how he'd follow you like a puppy dog, and I think that was the only thing that kept me from doing it too."

"Really?" she asked strangely.

"Yeah," Harry said. "I wanted to. I remember that. I remember not wanting to let you out of my sight whenever you were out. I even told myself I wouldn't go to the bar too much just in case I looked too eager." There were a couple of times that he slipped and went anyway, but he decided not to mention that.

"Isn't it funny," she said. "How long have we been married? And we've never talked about any of this..."

"We never talked about much, really," Harry said.

"I know," she giggled. It was strange to see Trish giggle. Her voice was deep enough that it didn't sound like it, but her face was lit up all girlishly. "We found plenty of other things to do... Come to think of it, mine and Jack's sex was never even half that good."

"It must have been good enough," Harry said a little spitefully.

"It was a little exciting," Trish said. "Not the sex. Jack's a pretty good-looking guy, and there are plenty of girls at the tennis club who are after him. It was nice to have him pursue me, but it also felt strange, when I finally had him. There was no satisfaction." She looked at him meaningfully.

"Sorry to hear that," Harry said.

"Harry," she said, leaning forward. "I know I don't show it, but I do love you. It was more intense back then, but even when things started to get stale, it never occured to me to leave you. Even when we stopped making love. There's no other man I could share my life with."

"Is that what you call what we have?" Harry asked. "We don't share much."

She smiled, and looked down at the floor. "I've never been that sort of person, Harry," she said. "And while I'm surprised at how little I know about you lately, I do know you wouldn't prefer a woman who gushed and babbled endlessly about how much she loved you."

Harry didn't say anything. She had a point, and he twisted his mouth and looked at the television. He said nothing, though -- it was annoying as it was to have to concede the point inwardly.

"Unless she's like that...?" Trish asked, following his eyes.

"No," he said, looking at Veronica's face. It was strangely reassuring to see her there. Suddenly he felt a longing to be with her. "Not really, anyway. She's pretty frank, but she doesn't talk about her feelings much." He suddenly recalled the times where Veronica had told him how he made her feel, and it made him warm inside, and while he supposed that those times probably could be emotional gushing by Trish's standards, he decided to keep that to himself. No need to share everything at this point.

"My oh my," Trish said, talking appreciatively again. "I don't think you know what it does to me to see you with her."

"No," Harry said, "I don't."

Trish looked at him for a second and thought, before saying, "You thought I'd be hurt."

"It crossed my mind," he said.

"Does it bother you that I'm not?" she asked.

"I don't know," he said. "I've been unfaithful. It hurt when I found out you were."

Trish nodded. "And you think that if I'm not hurt, then it means I love you less."




Rebuilding Harry Ch. 06



Harry shook his head and laughed. "I gave up on hoping you were still in love with me, Trish. I gave up on that a long time ago."

He slouched back into the armchair, suddenly wanting a beer, but at that moment, Trish stood up. Her clothes hung loosely on her, and her blouse was still opened in the front, revealing her bra and smooth stomach. He looked up at her face, and her eyes were fixated on him, and she was smiling. Her mussed hair made it look like she'd just had sex, which he supposed she had been in a way, even if it was with herself. Suddenly it made him quiver a little inside. She'd been masturbating over him. Well, him and Veronica, but still, he was a part of that. It surprised him to know how good that felt. He wondered how many of his friends had wives who still fantasized about their husbands sexually. As Trish walked over to him, there was a sudden dynamic that made it seem as though they were back in university again, and he was momentarily spellbound by her presence. When she reached his armchair, she stood directly in front of him, and then parted her legs as she advanced a little more to sit on his lap, facing him. She leaned down, and gave him a deep kiss. Immediately he was brought back to where he was, when there was still some chemistry in their marriage. The smell of her perfume filling him, the feeling of her lips on his, the way she pressed her weight into him, the sight of her body over his, the confidence with which she kissed. The moment devoured him, until she leaned back, with a coy look in her eyes.

"I've always loved you, Harry," she said. "Even if I suck at showing it, even if the desire for sex wasn't there, I always cared for you." She smiled afterwards, and then ran a single finger up his cheek and to his temple, twirling his hair with it. "But I have to tell you, the desire for sex right now is so strong..."

"Whoa," he said. "Wait a minute." He put his hands on her hips and guided her to the side of him so he could stand up. "Let me see if I've got this straight. You see me with another woman and suddenly you're interested again?"

She thought about it for a second, and then nodded. "I guess you could put it that way," she said.

"Right," he said. "Jesus, Trish, the only reason you're interested in me is because I've moved on. You don't love me-"

"Harry," she said. "I could have left at any time."

He stared at her for a second before he realized her point. They were married. She had him. If she wasn't really interested in him, then like she said, she could have left at any time. But she stuck it out, just like he had. Maybe her reasons weren't his, but he'd never known her to be like him.

"Well," he said. "I'm not sure where this leaves us."

"I don't know either," she said. "But you can't imagine this feeling inside me. Harry, what we have isn't over."

He inhaled to rebuke her again, but at that moment he saw her eyes as she said it, and there was something in them, something approaching a yearning, and it disarmed him. He'd never known her to look like that, not ever, not even before they were married. She'd always been confident, sturdy, but right now she was almost shaken, and his instinct to want to see her happy made him feel almost tender towards her for that. He couldn't look her in the eye for a second, and brought his gaze down to her clothes. It was then that he realized what that feeling of deja vu was at the office. The outfit, it was just like the outfits she used to wear back in the bar, little eye-catching things that looked classy at first, but the more you watched her body move in them, the more saucy you sensed she might be. She always wore those outfits with great confidence, but suddenly, that confidence was starting to slip. It made him a little hesistent to bring up Veronica again, but he couldn't hold back what he knew now to be true.

"What I have with her isn't over," he said.

She stared at him for a second, appraising him, before she regained her composure, and got a resolute look on her face.

"Well then, you're right," she said. "I guess we do have a lot to talk about."

"Yeah," he said, and then he saw how her look had changed. No longer was she in a weakened state. And, as she began to talk about the future, he found himself listening with a steadily growing feeling of unease.

***

"First of all," Veronica said the next day, as she set his coffee before him, "I want to tell you how sorry I am about this. I should've been more careful."

"It's alright," Harry said, leaning back into his chair, regarding Veronica carefully. Her demeanour was strange. There was no warmth in her. She stood upright and distantly, and the look in her eyes was without excitement. She didn't seem sorry so much as she seemed to be preparing for the worst. She was even dressed in a subdued manner, not one of the usual sharp and colourful suits. Her glasses were massive and hid most of her face, and her hair was tied back really blandly.

"It was stupid, leaving it out like that," she said. "I wasn't thinking."

"She would've found out eventually," Harry said, and smiled reassuringly. Veronica's eyes met his, but she seemed very apprehensive. "It, um, led to an interesting discussion, though."

Veronica nodded, but said nothing.

"We, uh, talked about lot of things," he said. "Stuff about our marriage and whatnot. Strangely enough, some things came up that never would have unless she'd found out." He kept watching her, and the look in her eyes was such that it was all he could do to get up and hold her, but there was a heavy issue to come, and he figured there was no sense pretending like it wasn't going to be a big deal. "She wasn't mad. Given our marriage, it wouldn't have made sense for her to feel that way. Still, I think she was surprised by her reaction to it. I know I was."

"That must have been good," she said, smiling, but the tentative way her lips moved showed it to be a forced gesture. Her eyes seemed to show something approaching dread.

"Yeah," he said. "It was." He picked up the coffee and walked over to the window, looking out at the green, hilly outlines of Hellespont, before taking a deep sip. "I mean, she's my wife, so it's not easy to think about leaving her behind. What we talked about... it reminded me of why we got married, how we used to feel... how we could feel again... It was pretty moving to see that there was still a bond there. She wants to see if we can work it out."

He looked in the reflection of the window and saw Veronica standing there, almost dutifully, staring straight ahead in what seemed to be a lost expression.

"Please, don't get me wrong," Harry said. "I wouldn't take back what we did. Not in a million years."

"But..." she said slowly. He turned around to face her and saw she had a dark smile on her face.

"But nothing," he said quickly, and after setting the coffee down, came right up to her and put his hands on her cheeks, stroking them and tilting her face up to his. "I mean that."

"Harry..." she sighed, bringing her own hands up to his, but to remove them. She then walked past him to his desk and sat up on it. "I know where this is going. We can just get straight to it."

"I don't think you understand," Harry said, but she laughed.

"Harry, I do," she said. "Really, I do." He opened his mouth to reply, but she cut him off. "Look, Harry, I care about you so much, and I'm really happy if you're happy."

He shook his head. "Veronica-"

"Let me finish," she said, gesturing for him to be silent. "I know what we had. I'll always remember it fondly. I wish it could have lasted longer, but I guess these sorts of things never do last."

"But-"

"Harry," she said, and she smiled as she spoke, with an air of both sadness and acceptance, "It's alright. Really. I won't lie and say I like it, but I would have been a fool not to expect that there was something there I could never compete with. I can tell that what we had was special, and our own, and even if it was only a temporary affair, I can honestly say that I was happy throughout it all."

As Harry listened to her speak, he was beginning to wonder if he was going to be able to say what needed to be said, and it was hard to read her and see how she'd respond. Still, he opened his mouth to try. "Listen-"

"We're probably going to have to figure out new working arrangements, though," she said, her eyes lighting up with an ironic flash. "I think I made a good enough impression on Nunberg, so that should be-"

"Veronica, shut up for a second," he said. She closed her mouth, and lowered her head and looked off to the side. He wondered if she was going to start crying, but somehow that didn't seem consistent with how he knew her to be. "When I said you didn't understand, I don't think you heard me."

"Oh, I heard you-" she began.

"Veronica," he said. "I'm not leaving you behind. Are you kidding me? Why would I do something so stupid as to let you go?"

She looked up at him with a confused expression, and he felt himself grow nervous as he stepped forward to take her hands in his. He had no idea how he was going to verbalize it.

"But Trish, your marriage..." she said.

"It's complicated," he said, before taking a deep breath, biting his lip as he stared into her eyes. Finally, he exhaled and blurted it out. "She wants you to come over for dinner."

Veronica stared up at him, her lips parted, and her face gradually changing expressions into disbelief.

"When I told her there was no way I was leaving you, she made that suggestion," he said. "She said that maybe there was something that could be worked out. Some sort of agreement."

"Harry," Veronica said, "what on earth does she want?"

"I don't know," Harry said. "I really don't know. I guess she still wants to keep something going between me and her and is willing to negotiate some arrangement. Look, Veronica, you say the word and I'll go home and tell her it's a bad idea, that I'm just going to leave her, and that she needs to get herself a lawyer. I don't know what it is you want out of life, but I'd love to try to be the guy to-"

She brought her finger up to his lips, and she smiled as she pursed her lips into a "Shhh." She wasn't smiling, but her eyes shined with something between happiness and mischief. She looked thoughtful, and then asked, "Do you still love her? Tell the truth."

Harry's impulse was to say no, but he knew it was a bit of a lie. The discovery of his wife's continued affection for him, despite the way their marriage was headed, had rekindled just enough that it would have been dishonest to pretend that something wasn't still there, that Trish didn't still hold a part of him. Even the thought of her the night before, on his lap, leaning in and kissing him, had kept him up most of the night. He'd slept in the same bed with her, and while there was still no contact between them, there was a massive tension that had seemed to compel him to her, and at one point they were both awake at the same time, and their eyes had met, and she'd smiled at him, but still kept a respectful distance. In the middle of the darkness it had been a powerful moment, not something he could dismiss, and while everything in him was certain that there was no choice, that he'd take Veronica over Trish in a heartbeat, he couldn't fake the fact that he'd feel like he was leaving something big behind. So, he nodded, but he implored her to understand with his stare.

And in the way she smiled back at him, he saw that she did. She laughed. "And you'd still leave her for me?" she asked.

"Oh yeah," he said. "In a second."

She stared at him with bright eyes, twisting her mouth, before finally asking, "So, would this dinner be formal or casual?"



Rebuilding Harry Ch. 07



When she arrived the next night, Veronica had decided upon a combination of the two. Harry had been pacing the living room nervously with a beer while Trish made the dinner, and had envisioned all sorts of disasters for the evening. He was dressed up a little, without a blazer but with a tie, while Trish was wearing dark colors, a backless blouse and skirt that looked like it would have been a hit at a dinner party or a Superbowl get together. When she walked out of the bedroom, Harry's jaw had dropped as he saw what felt like a ressurection of what she looked like at some of the posher parties back in university, complete with immaculate hair tied back in a loose ponytail and subtle makeup that gave her an air of looking both natural and glamorous. When she dressed like that back then, he always felt a little giddier to have her at his side, and so it was a confusing moment to have her looking like this as he was about to introduce Veronica to her. Trish had looked at what he was wearing for a prolonged moment of appraisal, as if unsure if there was something that should be added, but after a while she just smiled, nodded her head and went to the kitchen to check up on the chicken.

When the doorbell rang, he almost spilled beer all over himself as he rushed to get it before Trish could, even though Trish didn't make a move to leave the kitchen. As he opened the door, he caught his breath. Veronica looked stunning, her maroon skirt and white blouse hanging loosely on her frame but still suggesting the curves underneath. As she smiled at him and stepped into the light, he saw that the blouse was actually a little translucent, and he could make out her figure and even the straps of her bra as she stood before him.

"So?" she asked. "Will this do?"

"You look great," he said nervously. He didn't know why it was important whether she looked good or not, but for some reason it was nice to see that she wasn't going to be outdone by his wife. He supposed it would make things easier. The way he'd envisioned it, Trish and Veronica would try to figure out exactly how his respective relationships with both of them would work, and Veronica would leave, and things would continue as they were or they wouldn't, but there was such a heightened energy to the moment that he couldn't help but be a little relieved that Veronica had shown up so exquisitely, as though he could say to his wife, "How could you blame me?"

"Well..." she said, looking around. "This is your house."

"Yeah," he said, shrugging, before taking another sip of beer.

"Aren't you going to kiss me hello?" she said, scrunching her mouth up into an amused smile, her dark eyes lit up playfully.

"Yeah," he laughed. "Well, to be honest, I wanted to wait until Trish came out so we could just go at it, right in front of her."

"Oh really?" she asked, biting her lip, smiling hard.

"Yup," he said. "I'm all packed, actually. We could do that and then run for our lives."

"Relax," Veronica said, patting him on the arm. "I think if your wife was going to be kill me she wouldn't have gone about it this way." Her hand lingered on his forearm a while, and her now familiar touch was enough for him to forget about the bizarre context of it all, and he leaned in to kiss her.

"It's good to see you," he said.

"Ditto," she said, and walked past him. She kept her shoes on, and it was a little exciting to see she was wearing her high heels into his place, since it added a little something to her strut that seemed almost sultry, and having her looking that way in his own living room made his stomach queasy.

"Harry?" came Trish's voice from the kitchen.

Veronica stopped in her tracks, and looked back at him and smiled, although he read a certain anxiety in her eyes. He swallowed hard, but sucked it up and walked out to escort Veronica to the kitchen, his arm around her waist.

They came around the corner, and Trish was standing there, a funny little apron and oven mitts adding a charming goofiness to her elegance, and when she turned to see them, she smiled widely, straightened herself up and removed the mitts, and said "Hello!" before walking forward to place her hands on Veronica's shoulders to give a friendly peck on the cheek, which Veronica returned awkwardly. "It's really nice to meet you," Trish said while their eyes were locked momentarily, before dropping her head in a slightly humble fashion to head back to the stove.

"It's nice to meet you too," Veronica said, putting her hands behind her back and getting up on her tiptoes in a fidgety moment. She inhaled deeply and added, "It smells wonderful."

"Oh this?" Trish asked. "Just an old chicken recipe. You don't mind wine, do you?"

"Not at all," Veronica said.

"That's good," Trish laughed, "because it's in the sauce. It hadn't even occured to me to ask Harry to check if that was okay..."

"It's fine," Veronica said, looking back at Harry and smiling. "It sounds delicious."

Harry had felt invisible for that moment, and had been content to be so, as he watched the sight of Veronica and his wife so close together. The emotions within him were so inexplicable, even more so than the time Trish had stopped by the office the day it all came out. That day felt like it was a hundred years ago now in the present situation, and each breath he took tickled its way up and down his throat at the thought of Trish and Veronica being so close together, so cordial even though the circumstances here were those that would have inspired anger amongst any other group of reasonable people.

"Well, good, I'm glad," Trish said, "Now shoo. Everything else aside, this is still my kitchen." She laughed heartily and waved them out into the den. "Maybe you should offer her something to drink?" she called after them as they made their way to the sofa, with Harry not sure if the mood was more jovial or nervous. He looked at Veronica expectantly.

"Vodka? Bourbon?" he asked.

"Ice water," Veronica said. "I need something to put these flames out."

"You're nervous too, huh," Harry asked.

"Why wouldn't I be?" Veronica asked, raising her eyebrows anxiously. "Your wife is beautiful."

Harry smiled, and walked towards her, stopping just close enough so that he could lean in and whisper, "Say the word, and we're out of here."

Veronica looked up at him, and got up on her tiptoes, her eyes locked on him as she smiled, licked her lips and said "Are you kidding? I'm not leaving yet. This is just too much fun." She then caught his chin in her teeth and snarled, "Now get me my water."

"Hey, whoa," he said, pulling away. "If you're the boss at your house, don't I get to be the boss at mine?"

"Haven't you figured it out yet?" she said, slipping her hands around his waist. "You've never been the boss."

"Right," he said. "You're fired."

She pursed her lips, looked off to the side, and then shrugged slowly, before saying, "Okay."

"Just kidding," he said. "You're rehired."

She repeated the exact same motion, and then said, "Okay."

"Ice water?" he said.

"Yes please," she said, smiling, and he shook his head as he went back to the kitchen. Trish was standing there, with three plates out on the counter. She looked at him as he entered with wide eyes.

"Oh Harry," she said. "She's even prettier in person. I can't believe I ever let you hire someone like that."

"Let me?" he laughed. "You hadn't paid attention to my work in years." He was immediately a little remorseful about those words, since he didn't want to sound spiteful, but Trish just smiled at him.

"Well, you can bet I'm paying attention now," she said, before going back to arranging the vegetables on the plates.

He went through the motions of getting Veronica's ice water as quickly as he could, as Trish finished preparing their three plates. When he left the kitchen behind him, he saw from the corner of his eye that Trish had opened the refrigerator door to pull out a bottle of sparkling wine that she must have bought just for the occasion. Walking through the dining room, he saw that their best silverware and glasses were out, and that the three missing plates in the china cabinet must have had her chicken sitting on them right now.

He arrived in the den to see Veronica looking at the photographs of he and his wife together. She said nothing as she took the glass of water from him, and just continued to look at the pictures with a strange expression. Just as she finished the last of the water, Trish's voice called out that dinner was ready.

***

Dinner went smoothly enough, if a little awkwardly. He and Trish sat on opposite ends of the table, while Veronica sat between them. Conversation was limited to Harry's office and the work he and Veronica did together, with no mention of the affair through the entire main course. Harry had tried to steer conversation away to safer topics, complimenting his wife's cooking and bringing up the odd reference to something that he and Veronica needed to see to back at work, and he noticed that Trish stared at them very intently, with a certain warm look in her eyes when they talked briefly about work. Harry quickly apologized for leaving her out of the discussion, but Trish smiled and said it was alright.

The dinner was delicious, and it was painful to watch each mouthful that Trish and Veronica brought to their lips, the way that they both looked so beautiful even while eating, and at the same time looked so natural, as though they'd been having dinners together for months. Veronica even asked about the way Trish had prepared the wild rice, and Trish had obliged with such non-chalance about it that Harry had to sit back and marvel about the surreality of it all. There was a gradual shift in the way the two women were, though. He noticed that at the beginning of the meal, even as they courteously looked at each other while talking, both had directed their attention at him in minute ways, with Trish's body constantly facing him and Veronica pivoting when she wanted to speak to him. Then, after the first glass of wine, things loosened up a little, and during the recipe discussion they were both talking to each other as if they were friends, and before long the two were trading jokes about Harry, during which he kept silent, breaking it only to laugh along. Still, the subject matter stayed totally safe even as the three had finished their plates, at which point Trish asked if anybody wanted coffee with their dessert.

"There's dessert?" Harry asked.

"Oh yes!" Trish said. "It's nothing special, just mousse." She looked at Veronica and repeated the question. "Coffee?"

Veronica lifted her wine glass and said, "I'm fine with this."

Trish looked over at him, and he said, "I guess I'm fine too."

"Good," Trish said, and stood up to get their plates, getting Veronica's first, Trish's free hand touching her on the shoulder as she removed it. Veronica turned her head back to smile, and it was definitely a sight to see, Trish standing behind Veronica, the plunging neckline of her backless blouse almost touching the back of Veronica's head. In an instant it was over, and his wife was walking towards him to get his plate, and when their eyes met he saw that Trish had seemed really pleased about the way the meal had gone, the hint of the smile that had never left her red lips the entire meal still there as she took his plate, the forearm of the hand holding Veronica's brushing him on the shoulder.

"It was a delicious meal," Veronica said as Trish returned to her seat to pick up the last plate before going to the kitchen.

"My pleasure," Trish said. "Maybe we can do this again sometime?"

Harry, who was in the middle of a sip of his drink, almost snorted it up.

"See?" Trish laughed, walking back out with a couple of bowls of mousse. "Harry thinks it's a good idea too."

"Oh, he does, does he?" Veronica said, turning at him and grinning.

He coughed a couple of times after setting down his drink. "Why not?" he said, wondering if the night could get any weirder. Quickly, he realized that of course the night was going to get weirder, since they hadn't even spoken about what it was Veronica had been invited there to discuss, although the look in Trish's eyes as she returned from the kitchen with the third bowl of mousse and another bottle of wine seemed to say it was coming up. She opened the wine and walked around to pour everyone a fresh glass, and this time when Veronica lifted her glass to receive hers, Trish placed her hand on Veronica's to steady the glass.

Harry watched the momentary contact with a little anxiety, before he took a deep breath and decided that he ought to just concentrate on the dessert and let things happen as they would. As if he needed to see the two of them just now to confirm it, he realized that whatever was going to happen needed to be sorted out between Trish and Veronica. He was just there for show. They probably could have had this discussion in the food court of a local mall or something. It made him wonder -- did Trish set up this elaborate scene to try to impress Veronica about his home life? Was Veronica here to try to make it clear she wouldn't be intimidated? Were they going to put the decision to him to choose? In a way, he was beginning to hope they wouldn't, because what had seemed like a clear decision only a half-hour earlier was quickly becoming muddied after the wine. They were both just so beautiful, that he had a feeling he'd have "what if" sentiments no matter which way this whole thing went. Deep down, he was wishing that the two of them would be willing to let his double life continue. He wouldn't want to trade in his relationship with Veronica for anything, but there was something about the way Trish had turned around in the last day that made him nostalgic for the marriage they had in the beginning. As he worked through the mousse he turned those thoughts around in his brain, until Veronica finally broke the stalemate.

"So," she said, setting down her spoon over her half-eaten dessert, "why exactly is it that you two have invited me here?"

Harry raised his eyebrows to look at her. He was pretty sure that he'd told her this was Trish's idea first and foremost, so he figured maybe she was trying to put on an act for Trish's sake, but with their intimacy it was safe to say his wife wouldn't have expected him to be anything but candid with Veronica.

"Well," Trish said, "there's this matter of what you and my husband have been up to." She wasn't looking either of them in the eye, focusing instead on the center of the table, and continuing to eat the mousse, albeit slowly, and with the hint of a smile on her face.

"I see," Veronica said. "Yes, Harry mentioned that you'd figured out about our affair." She leaned forward a little and looked Trish and added, "And I wanted to say I'm really sorry if this has been a bother for you. I was under the impression that you and Harry were no longer intimate in that way."

Trish looked up and met Veronica's gaze, and nodded her head appreciatively, before looking at Harry and saying, "I understand why he did it. Truth be told, I cheated on him a while ago too. It was a joyless experience."

Harry kept eating at his mousse, wondering what he'd have to say for himself once the conversation came to him.

"I'm sorry to hear that, I think," Veronica said.

"I'm not," Trish said. "It was something I let happen, and afterwards I really didn't like what it was I'd done to Harry, even though I was sure he didn't know about it at the time. It was a shallow thing, all in all." With this, she glanced over at Harry, and slyly lifted her eyebrow. "Unlike what it is you and my husband have."

Veronica looked down and smiled, before looking over at Harry. "Well, it's a pretty special man you're married to over there."

"Yes," Trish said. "He sure is."

Harry glanced back and forth between the two of them as their beautiful gazes locked on him -- Veronica, with her heart-shaped face deep within her wavy hair, and her large eyes and full, red lips, and Trish, with her slightly sharper features, her curly hair and a stare almost like an amused vampire right then. He let his eyes fall upon their bodies, glancing from Veronica's shorter voluptuous figure, hidden behind that thin blouse, over to Trish's larger, athletic form, her loose-fitting top revealing her toned shoulders and defined neck. He realized that he was practically leering over the sight of the two of them, and he quickly dipped his head and went back to his mousse.

"And..." Trish continued, "I think we wanted you here to figure out exactly who gets to keep him."

Veronica nodded, before placing her elbows on the table, and leaning her chin atop her folded hands thoughtfully. "When I first saw Harry, I was intrigued by him, his strange combination of goodness and mischief. But this was before I found out he was married. The more I got to know him, the more I found myself wanting him, and it was a little bit of an ache in me, knowing he was taken, so I tried distracting myself with an attractive guy who just didn't do it for me in the end. When I found out that your marriage was, well, the way it was, I couldn't help myself. I suppose I'd be a little ashamed if he hadn't given me such pleasure. And, of course, the whole time I was convinced I wasn't really home-wrecking, so I let myself go along with it. I was really sorry when I found out that you still felt strongly for him, partly because I felt bad if I'd hurt you."

Trish smiled kindly at Veronica. "That's alright. I deserved every bit of it. I didn't treat Harry well, and I can't blame him for cheating if I did it. Really, to be honest, the only leverage I have over you is our marriage. I know you're the one in control here."

Veronica chuckled. "It doesn't feel like I'm in control."

"Oh, but you are," Trish said. "You should have seen the way you two made love in that video. The last time Harry and I were like that, it was years ago. I know you have his heart now."

"And yet..." Veronica said, tilting her head towards him, "he never actually tried to divorce you." Harry opened his mouth to speak, but Veronica cut him off. "I didn't expect you to," she said quickly. "I just put it out there as something to think about, that you stayed with Trish even after she cheated on you, that you stayed with her even after you and I started, and that you were just as happy as I was to let it stay that way."

"Um..." Harry began, and then shook his head. "I don't really know what to say." He looked at Trish intently and said, "You wouldn't be an easy woman to walk away from." Her eyes went down as she smiled at the compliment. "I guess I just figured that it didn't really make a difference between you and I, if Veronica was in my life."

"I understand," Trish said, before pushing her unfinished mousse away to take another sip of wine. "I really do. Like I said, I'm not mad." She closed her eyes and took a deep breath to steady herself, before turning her head to Veronica, opening her eyes slowly. "It's just, watching you and Harry awakened something in me that I hadn't felt about him in a while. At first I thought it was jealousy, but it was more than that. It was a combination of things - how beautiful you two looked together, how I could feel your desire when you looked at him... And Jesus, Harry, the gym's been doing wonders for you."

"Oh thanks," he said sarcastically, before laughing.

"That's not what I meant!" Trish laughed, embarrassed. "It's just... well, you looked different. It was like you weren't my husband, and since I've been taking that for granted for so long... It just took me back to where you and I were when we were in university, the way I felt when I first saw you." She looked at Veronica. "And really, I have you to thank for it. It's such a wonderful feeling, but it's also a little bittersweet, to think that I'm only feeling this again when I'm on the verge of losing him to someone younger and prettier."




Rebuilding Harry Ch. 07



Veronica shook her head. "I think it's safe to say you're beautiful in a way I can't be," she said, in a matter-of-fact tone. "I mean, I've seen the way you two are when you're next to each other, and it looks so natural. With Harry and I, it's wonderful, it's like a honeymoon, but with you two, it's as though there's a love that's been there for years that's still going very strong." She looked at Trish's body approvingly. "There are times I wish I was a little taller, a little closer to his size, so that I could take control of him properly and... I think I need to slow down with this wine!" she said quickly, before picking up the glass, appraising it, and then downing it in one shot.

Trish laughed and Harry chuckled, and they looked at each other at that moment, and there was an electricity in Trish's eyes that overpowered him and kept him from looking away. Finally, Trish broke the gaze and looked at Veronica and said, "Well, what do we do, then? I get the feeling he's ready to leave with you the moment you say you want to, but you could have done that already. Instead you're here. What do you think?"

Veronica shrugged, as she held out her glass for Trish to fill it up. "I don't know," she said. "What do you guys think?"

Trish shook her head as she poured. "Harry?"

"Don't ask me," he laughed. "This is your show."

Trish stopped pouring, and set the bottle aside, pursing her lips thoughtfully. "Well, how would you feel if Harry and I started behaving like a husband and wife again?"

Veronica twisted her lips, pondering the question for a moment. "Depends on where that leaves me," she said. "I think you know how I feel about him, too."

"I know," Trish said. "That's why I wanted you here. I wanted you to know first-hand I'm willing to find the right arrangement." She paused, and then added, "Plus, it would be thrilling to know that you were still around. All I need to do is just picture the two of you in that video..." she shivered visibly, before taking another sip from her own glass.

"So, we both get to keep him?" Veronica asked slowly. She looked at Harry and smiled. "At least this way I don't have to be a home-wrecker."

"But would it bother you?" Trish asked, gesturing subtly with her finger back and forth between herself and Harry. "Having to share him with me?"

"I should ask you the same question," Veronica said.

Trish shook her head. "It wouldn't bother me."

Veronica took a sip from her glass, before saying to neither of them in particular, "I guess it wouldn't bother me... Harry? What do you think?"

Harry had been sitting completely petrified throughout the entire discussion, before coughing in a way that suggested that he could probably live with the arrangement. But he quickly composed himself and asked Veronica, "It really wouldn't bother you?"

Veronica looked up at the ceiling and titled her head like she was considering the possible downside, but in the end shook her head.

Harry then looked at his wife, who was taking another sip. "It really wouldn't bother you either?"

"It was the first thing that popped into my head when I saw the video, to be honest," she said. Harry considered her face for a second, and the look in her eyes made him realize that the two of them were about to start behaving like a proper couple again. The air he breathed was beginning to tickle again, as the thought of being close to her again, completely guilt-free, entered his mind. Then he looked over at Veronica, and he realized that he was going to be able to keep her too, once more, completely guilt-free. He didn't know what thought was stirring him up more.

"So it's agreed!" Veronica said happily. "All we need to do is work out a Harry schedule."

Trish and Harry laughed, before it suddenly dawned on him that there were going to be practical considerations to work out if he really was going to have two different relationships to work through. Before he could fully explore it, Trish spoke up.

"Actually, there was another thing I was wondering," she said.

"What's that?" Veronica asked, taking a sip of her wine.

"Well, the thing is..." Trish said slowly, standing up and walking deliberately behind Harry and placing her hands on his shoulders. "I wanted to know how you felt about me having seen the two of you together."

Veronica grinned a silly grin and shrugged. "I don't know. My first thought was being mortified by it, just because of how I thought you'd react."

"And now?" Trish asked. Harry felt her behind him -- she was leaning in close, and he felt the back of his head being nestled into the cleavage behind the ruffling of the plunged neckline of her top. As her fingers subtly massaged his shoulders, and as he saw the appreciative look Veronica was giving as she looked at him and his wife, he felt a stirring within him, an arousing as well as an emotional one. Her eyes stayed on them for a while before she thought to answer the question.

"That's a tough one," she said. "I've always prided myself on being willing to try most things once." She laughed. "But videotaping myself on my lover's camera for his wife to watch wasn't something that had ever occured to me to try."

"So, now that you've done it," Trish said, "how does it make you feel?"

"It's hard to say," Veronica said. "I don't know." She looked down at her empty glass, and her eyes went to the bottle as if considered going for another one, but she opted for the mousse instead. Staring at the center of the table, she brought a spoonful to her lips and kept it there for a moment, a thoughtful look on her face.

"If it didn't embarass you too much, would you be willing to do it again?" Trish asked.

Harry had already given up trying to figure out how much further into the arena of the ridiculous this conversation could go, so he kept sipping his wine. His head was beginning to feel a little light, though, so he figured he should slow down. Suddenly, his wife's touch was that much more perceptible, and he allowed himself to lean his head back a little more, so that her breasts were practically flanking his ears. Meanwhile, her fingers had know moved from his shoulders and were dragging their way slowly down his back. He wanted to close his eyes, but suddenly Veronica looked back over at him, and her face had this strange expression, like she'd gotten more than once when they were having sex, sort of a wide-eyed disbelief about how good she was feeling.

"I might," she said. "I mean, no harm, no foul, right?" She bit the corner of her lip.

"Mmmm," Trish said, before standing back from him, and walking back over to her seat along Veronica's side of the table. Harry was appreciating the walk, a slow yet assertive walk, seductive and yet subtle, when she stopped directly behind Veronica's seat, and she placed her fingers on Veronica's shoulders, cupping them gently, before turning to him and saying, "How about you, Harry? How do you feel about me watching you and her together, from time to time?"

Harry was about to suggest she leave the house for an hour so that he and Veronica could get some footage down right away, when Veronica leaned in closely again, the way she did with Harry, her breasts pressing into the back of Veronica's head, her fingers delicately running up and down Veronica's arms. Veronica was breathing a little heavily now, and she stuck her chest out a little at Trish's touch as she stared straight into the center of the table. Harry didn't speak for a moment until Veronica looked at him, and he saw in her eyes now that same smokey look she had when the two had first kissed in his office. He looked up at his wife, who was smiling but also very calm and composed.

"Yeah," he said. "Yeah, we could probably do that."

"How about if I was in the room with you?" Trish asked. "Would that be okay, Harry? If I were in the room watching?"

"I don't see why not," he said.

"Veronica?" Trish asked, leaning to the side a little to address her.

Veronica leaned her head to the side to look back, and her eyes caught a full look of Trish's bosom before she looked up Trish's face. Harry's growing erection was full force now, as he could see Trish standing behind Veronica so dominantly, her breasts practically in Veronica's face, with Trish's fingers still tracing lines on the arms right next to Veronica's breasts. When their eyes met, Veronica bit her lip again and nodded.

"That's good," Trish said, and she stepped back from Veronica, and walked to that corner of the table between Harry and Veronica, and stood there for a second, glancing back and forth between them. "How about this?" she asked, grinning excitedly. "I'll go into the bedroom and turn the light off, I'll be waiting there for a few minutes. Then you two come in and act as though you've got the house to yourselves, and just do whatever you'd like. How's that? You won't even know I'm there."

Harry was pretty sure he'd know she was there, but as he looked from Trish to Veronica, he didn't say a word. Veronica, who looked a little more composed now, nodded at him. He looked back at Trish and said, "That'd be fine. Do you want to do this right now?"

Trish nodded. "Give me ten minutes to get ready."

"Okay," Veronica said, and like that Trish was off, briskly making her way to the bedroom and leaving he and Veronica behind. When she was gone, their eyes met and they started laughing. Harry asked himself if this could really be happening. The thought of Veronica and him together in his bed, with his wife watching, probably masturbating the way that she had while she'd watched the tape, was too much to compute, and was making him feel even drunker.

"Need more wine?" Veronica asked, as if sensing his thoughts.

"Nah," he said. "You?"

"Nope," she said. "Harry, I am so damned wet right now it's not even funny."

"Really?" he asked.

"Yep," she said, shivering. She picked up her spoon and took a little more mousse before saying, "Fuck it." She stood up and strode right over to him and practically threw herself on him, kissing him heavily, grabbing him by the head and pressing her body into his, so that he almost fell over backward in his chair with her on top of him. He managed to retain balance and stand up while maintaining the kiss, and his hands went to caress her while hers immediately began to untuck his shirt.

"Whoa, whoa," he said, separating himself from her lip lock momentarily. "Easy now, there's no rush."

"Like hell there isn't," she said. "I'm going to fuck you like you won't believe. I'm going to give that wife of yours a show she's never going to forget." Her hands had already worked his shirt free and were now undoing his belt, and she leaned in to kiss him again. "Touch my breasts," she said around his lips. He did, and as his hands cupped them he could feel her hardened nipples through both the blouse and her bra. It excited him to see how turned on she was, at which point he grabbed her skirt and hiked it up to her hips and caressed her butt. After she'd gotten his pants loosened so that they fell down, revealing his cock, fully erect as if trying to escape his underwear, she grabbed his left hand and brought it to her pussy. "Feel it," she said.

"Wow," he said. She wasn't kidding. Her thong was practically soaked through, and as he ran his finger along the length of her vagina, from the tip near the asshole up to her front, he thought he could feel her clitoris through the material.

"I haven't been this wet in years," she said.

"Yeah," he said. "I'm almost a little hurt."

"Don't be a jackass," she laughed, kissing him and then biting his lower lip. "I don't think you're in a position to complain." She reached down and grabbed his cock, and looked down at it appraisingly. "Yeah, I think you're about as hard right now as I've ever seen you."

"Your mouth is so dirty all of a sudden," he laughed as he kissed her some more, trying to suppress a groan as she began to jack him off through his boxers.

"Fuck, I know," she said. "I'm getting geared up. Undo my shirt, but fix my skirt, will you?"

"Why?" he asked.

"I just want to go in there a certain way," she said. "Is that okay?"

"No," he said.

"Fuck you," she smiled, squeezing his cock painfully.

"Oh, all right," he said, as he fixed her skirt.

"Now take your pants off," she said.

"Huh?" he asked. "Why do I have to be more naked than you?"

"You just do," she said. "I can't explain why."

He sighed good-naturedly, complying. Suddenly, though, the thought of him walking into a room with an erection in plain view, with his wife waiting for him, made him shy a little, and he stopped kissing her.

"Hey," he said.

"Hey what?" she asked, pulling away from him. "You okay?"

"Yeah, it's just..." he began. He looked beyond where they were standing towards the hallway they would take to get to his bedroom. It was dark and mysterious all of a sudden, in an exciting but also nerve-wracking way. He looked back at Veronica, who stood there before him, her beautiful face concerned. He smiled at her. "Whatever happens in there, nothing changes between you and me, right?"

She smiled, leaned in close and got on her tip-toes to kiss him full on the mouth. "I'm okay if you're okay," she said.

"I think I'm okay," he said.

"Well, good," she said. "Because right now I really want to fuck you in front of your wife."

"Long voyage, hey sailor?" he smiled.

She nodded. "It's playtime."



Rebuilding Harry Ch. 08



They stopped making out then so that Veronica could arrange the look she wanted to have when they entered. Her hair was mussed and her shirt undone, but apart from that she looked composed, whereas he, wearing nothing now but his underwear, shirt and socks, looked almost funny, and it looked even funnier as she led him up the hall to the bedroom, holding him by shirt as she pulled him along commandingly.

"Which way?" she asked before going too far, pausing at a hallway mirror to see if they looked they way she wanted them to.

"Last door on the right," he said, and she nodded and continued on swiftly, her loosened blouse fluttering behind her. When she opened the door, the bedroom light was on dimly, and they both saw Trish's silhouette at the bathroom door.

"You're early," she said, and Harry was stunned by the sight of her. She'd slipped out of her dress and was wearing a bathrobe, loosely fastened at the front and unabashedly displaying her cleavage and toned stomach, although not so tight that anything more than the promise of her nipples was visible. Right below her bellybutton the robe was tied rather haphazardly, in a strangely bulky way, as though it were ready to fall off at any moment.

"Wow," he and Veronica said at the same time.

Trish smiled and quickly walked over to the shadowy part of the room to sit in a chair she'd arranged there, sitting down and getting comfortable. Veronica looked back at Harry and smiled, before she backed up towards the bed, pulling him now this time not by his shirt but instead by his cock, and her grip was forceful once more as she sat down and began to lower his underwear. Harry loved the sight of Veronica like this, facing him with her shirt parted to reveal her massive breasts and voluptuous figure, her mouth opened slightly, her bottom row of teeth visible as she stared at his cock hungrily, bringing up one of her feet to push down the underwear all the way to the floor. Then she looked up at him as she arranged herself on the bed, pulling him up so that he was kneeling upon it before her, his cock directly in front of her neck. She then brought her hands around to cup his ass, and guided him forward, pushing his cock into her open, waiting mouth.

Immediately he felt the warm pleasure of her lips and tongue on him, and he brought his hands to her head, taking a slight grip on her hair as he set the rhythm of her fellatio. It felt so good that he had to close his eyes, and it was only after a minute of this that he remembered his wife was in the room, and he looked over to her.

Trish was leaning back in the chair, her pelvis pushed out, and her right hand cupping a breast over the bathrobe, while the left hand was seeking its way down under the robe's knot to her crotch. Her legs were parted, and Harry desperately wanted to see her fingering herself, but where the robe was revealing from the waist up it was definitely concealing below. He looked up at her face and saw that she was fixated very strongly on Veronica as she sucked his cock, and as she watched she bit her lip, smiling. She pushed her pelvis out even more so that she was leaning further against the chair, and her hair was getting caught on the back, getting mussed in the process. Even though she was in the dark part of the room, her eyes were no longer wide but now had a half-open haze to them, a sight he remembered from when they used to make love a long time ago.

Veronica's motions started to quicken, and he returned his attention to her. She'd taken her hands from his butt to remove her shirt, a dextrous feat given that she managed it while continuing to suck his cock. Her breasts were held aloft by her sturdy bra, and Harry leaned his head forward a little so he could see them, and he brought his hands down to touch them. Veronica's smooth waist bulged a little in a positional pot belly, and suddenly he felt a strong desire to just grab her and start fucking her straight away. Still, though, Veronica's lips kept a firm grip on his cock, and as she looked up at him with her intense gaze, her hands brought his to her back so that he could undo her bra. He did this, and she hunched her shoulders forward so that it could fall off her body, and she gathered it up and tossed it to the side, all the time never breaking the contact between her mouth and his penis. Her breasts hung free and swayed a little with the movement, and she brought one hand up to caress one of them, cupping it and lifting it, squeezing it at the nipple between her fingers, as the other hand stroked his shaft. Harry leaned back and closed his eyes, listening the suction of his cock in her mouth, and he kept them closed until he heard a moan, only not from below him. When he looked over to the corner of the room, he saw that Trish had parted her robe enough to let her own breasts show freely, and her hand was cupping a breast almost identically to the way Veronica was. In fact, when he focused on her, he saw that her gaze was fixated almost entirely on the sight of Veronica's breasts. Immediately he wanted to see it from her eyes, how it would look, the gentle and subtle movements as her head bobbed up and down, and largeness of the areola as Veronica traced her finger around it.

As the moment went on, though, he saw that he was getting quite the show himself. As Trish continued to frig herself under the folds of her bathrobe with her hidden hand, the other that was mimicking Veronica's movement abandoned her breast momentarily and brought it to her mouth so she could suck on her fingers, moistening them. She did this for a while, this time matching the pace that Veronica was making as she sucked his cock, her eyes now focused on Veronica's lips. Harry saw that his wife's nipples were very hard, harder than they were the other night he caught her watching the videotape, harder still than he'd seen in forever. During that time that they weren't having sex she'd seemed almost immune to lust -- he'd never walked in on her masturbating or with a fantasizing look in her eye. He even thought back quickly to when she was with Jack, and saw that the excitement in her eyes there was nothing compared to what was there now, and that was with Jack touching her. It made him smile to think that he had rediscovered that part of her, and as she brought her fingers back down to her nipple to pinch it and rub it, her eyes met his, and through the locks of hair that had fallen over her face in her thrall, he finally saw that look of lust that he'd known once so long ago and had given up hope of ever seeing again. He couldn't help but smile happily, even as he was breathing hard at what Veronica was doing to him below.

"Harry," Trish said. "It's so hot what she's doing to you."

Veronica brought her lips off his cock and grabbed it with her hand, tilting it off to the side and stroking it off. "Does it look good?" she asked, before kissing him from the base of his shaft up to the head, which she then engulfed in her lips, all the while looking at Trish.

"Yeah," Trish said. "Yeah, it looks really good."

"Good," Veronica said, after pulling her lips slowly back over the head, letting it free with a slight fwmp! sound. But this time, as she kept jerking him off, she backed up slowly on the bed, her other hand managing to pull down the skirt she was wearing while leaving on the thong. The look in her eye was pure lust as she stared at Harry, and Harry must have been imploring her to continue fellating him, because she shook her head in response and said, "I want your wife to watch you eat me."

Trish let out a heavy breath and arched her back at the sound of that. He looked over and saw that both hands were at work under the robe and hidden out of view, her breasts laying bare but pressed together periodically by the shifting movement of her arms. He imagined that she must have been practically stabbing herself with her fingers, driving them deeper into her cunt, as she let out a soft moan and closed her eyes.
"Do you want to watch?" Veronica asked. "Do you want to watch your husband go down on me?"

Trish nodded as she bit her lip, and when she opened her eyes they were bright with excitement that shone, even through the hair that was now practically covering half her face, so much that some of it was on her lips.

"Do you?" Veronica asked again. "I want to hear you say it. I want you to tell him to eat my cunt."

"Harry," Trish chuckled lustfully, "go down on her. Kiss her down there."

Harry, quick to oblige, backed off for a second as Veronica brought her legs up. Harry grabbed the skirt that was now down around her ankles, lifted it off and tossed it to the side. Immediately, Veronica backed herself all the way up to the headboard and spread her legs, bent at the knees and tilted slightly to the side so that Trish could see the bulge of the part of her simple white thong that covered her vagina. He then got down on the bed, laying his belly flat upon it and advanced slowly towards her, first kissing her toes and then bringing his mouth from one leg to the other as he slowly worked his way up. When he got within range of her pussy he took his time, bringing his arms underneath to wrap them fully around her thighs, enjoying kissing her flesh and smelling the earthy scent that was coming off Veronica. All the while as he was doing this, Veronica had a hand on each breast, covering them, bringing them up close to her mouth so that she could look at her nipples, at one point even lifting a breast so that the nipple was right in front of her mouth, whereupon she ran the fingers of a hand over her tongue, and then brought it down to circle the lengthy circumference of the areola. Harry was looking right up the moment she did that, at which point he couldn't contain himself, and he plunged his face straight into the bulge of her thong for a long kiss. Veronica moaned, with Trish exhaling audibly right away afterwards.

Harry's hands quickly went up and grabbed the straps of the thong and tugged them down, and Veronica lifted her pelvis to hasten the removal. She didn't even wait for him to get out of the way, she simply pointed her legs straight up and brought the thong up with the dexterity of a gymnast, leaving Harry to admire her vagina, trapped between her legs for the seconds that her thong was keeping them locked together. Finally, though, they parted as the thong flew across the room, and once she hooked her legs over his back, he immediately had his mouth upon her pussy, his tongue working all around the labia as his hands clutched into her hips. He jabbed the tongue in and out of the vagina opening a few times, and then came up to gently stroke her clitoris with the tip of his tongue.

"Oh shit," she said. "God, don't tease me like that."

He took his mouth off.

"Don't stop!" she said. "Don't do that either."

"What do you want me to do?" he asked.

"I don't know," she said weakly, "just do something."

Harry got an idea. "What should I do?" he asked a little louder. He turned his head to the side and saw Trish as she masturbated, and she smiled between heavy breaths.

"Tease her clit," she said. "Don't let her get all of your mouth."

"No!" Veronica laughed, grabbing him by the back of his head and forcing him down into her crotch. "That's not fair!"

"Do it, Harry," Trish said, before she stopped touching herself, and stood up as if to walk towards the bed. "I want you to tease her."

"Please..." Veronica said in a pained voice, but Harry did as Trish commanded, and kept his mouth fully away from her vagina, breathing heavily on it, and every couple of seconds teasing it with the tip of his tongue, but not licking it properly.

"When she begs, you can kiss it fully," Trish said, as she took slow steps towards the corner of the bed.

"I'm begging, I'm begging," Veronica said.

"Not yet," Trish said.

Harry kept at it, feeling Veronica squirm before him, but as she gyrated her hips to try to get closer to his mouth, he pulled away. Suddenly, the surface of the bed dropped slightly and he sensed that Trish was right there. He spied out of the corner of his eye and saw her sitting there, admiring the view, her breasts in full view, one hand caressing them while the other reached out and touched his back. It was an unreal sensation for him, to have his wife stroking his back as he sat within an inch of another woman's cunt. He looked up and saw Veronica staring at Trish, taking in the full view of her, and her eyes showed her torment as she ran her tongue over her mouth and gripped her own breasts fully. Her expression was pleading, first at her and then at him, as she stared back down, looking from her vagina to his mouth. He smiled at her and leaned in as if to take it all in, and she closed her eyes and smiled, but he stopped short of kissing it, instead tracing the lines of her labia with the tip of his tongue again.

"Damn," she said, opening her eyes, looking tortured.

"Not yet," Trish said. "Harry, get up on your knees, will you?"

He did as he was told, and felt a little awkward in the position, until he felt Trish's fingers stroking a path from the small of his back to his hip, and then his thigh, before she leaned down on her side and reached in and took a full hold on his cock.

"Oh God," he said as she gripped it firmly but making only the slightest jerking motion. He looked back and saw that her face wasn't far from his, and she looked up from her ministrations on his cock, straight into his eyes, and smiled at him, before pursing her lips slightly and closing her eyes. Harry guided Veronica's leg so that it straightened out of the way, and he leaned over to kiss his wife. It was a slow, wet kiss, and it was so passionate that Harry closed his eyes so that he could concentrate completely on the sensation. At that moment he saw that Veronica couldn't hold out and longer, and had brought one of her hands down to begin fingering herself.

Trish heard the movement, and opened her eyes. "No," she said. "We can't let her."

"What?" Veronica said, dumbfounded, but before she got an explanation, Trish was up by her side, grappling the arm and holding it back so that she couldn't touch herself with that hand. Harry quickly got the gist and immediately grabbed the wrist of the other hand to keep it away too.

After a short struggle to free her arms that almost shook Trish's bathrobe off, Veronica quickly made a frustrated noise, and Harry saw that this was making Trish immensely excited. She leaned into Veronica's body so that her own exposed breasts were about to make contact with Veronica's, and Harry was mesmerized by the view of the two sets of nipples - Veronica's, wide and dark and now making a slight dome at the end of her massive tits, and Trish's, a little smaller but with more erect nipples, pointing at Veronica at the tip of her large and firm breasts. He was also caught by the view of their stomachs, both flat, even though his wife's was a little more defined, and their belly buttons, not at all far from each other. Trish brought her head in close to Veronica's ear so that her hair was touching her captive's cheek, and she whispered, "Not until I believe that you're begging."

"Please," Veronica pleaded. "I'll do anything."

"Not yet," Trish said as she leaned in and bit the corner of Veronica's ear, and then stuck her tongue out to tickle it a little. Veronica gasped and squirmed some more, and this time her breast did touch Trish's, and the contact made her moan. She arched herself sideways so that she could press her breast straight into Trish's bosom, but Trish withdrew a little. Harry had to keep a forceful lock on her hand as he kept circling Veronica's cunt with his mouth, doing his best to make sure that every exhale was both heavy and directed straight at Veronica's sensitive clit. Finally, Veronica's body relaxed, and Harry saw a defeated look in her eyes, at which point he gave in, and kissed her vagina fully.

"Oh!" she said, closing her eyes and immediately inhaling, a look of ecstatic relief taking over her face. Quickly, she turned to Trish, and instead of fighting to get her arm away, brought it around to Veronica's back, stroking her up and down the spine with her fingertips. Harry let go of her other hand and began to finger her as he kissed and sucked on her clit, and with her hand free to move, she brought it to the back of Harry's head and made a slight petting motion with it. She turned her face so that it was directly in front of Trish's, but as she stared into Trish's eyes with an unmistakable desire to kiss her, she made no move to do it. Trish smiled at her approvingly, and brought a hand up to Veronica's waist, tracing a circle around her belly button before rising up in a line that went straight through her cleavage and up to her neck, before she took a soft hold of it and, pulling it up so that Veronica's head was lifted off the headboard, Trish ducked down and began to kiss Veronica's neck.

"Oh, I like that," Veronica said, breathlessly, "That's nice."

Harry then changed the fingering of her cunt so that he was curling the finger upwards and back out towards the opening, gently stroking her g-spot, and Veronica moaned a little more, and then he brought his other hand so that it was pressed firmly against the roof of her pelvis, and she moaned a little more still. Trish was still kissing Veronica's neck, but now her hand had gone back down and was stroking Veronica's chest, before coming down a little further to fully cup one of Veronica's breasts. Harry took a break from tonguing Veronica's clitoris to watch, and he saw Veronica with her eyes closed and a smile on her face, and his erection became almost painfully large. Sensing that Harry was looking at her, Veronica opened her eyes and smiled down at him, breathing heavily. At this point, he withdrew his hands and quickly went up to kiss her mouth, and Trish leaned back a little to leave them to it, stroking the back of Harry's head as they kissed. Then she grabbed him by the hair and pulled him back a little, and then leaned in to quickly kiss them both, first Harry, and then Veronica.

"So," Trish said, when she leaned back. "What do you want to do now?"

"Mmmm," Veronica said. "I think I'd like to ride your husband. Would that be alright?"

Trish nodded. "You'd better get him ready first, though."

"Okay," Veronica grinned, and the two of them promptly arranged Harry on his back, before Veronica began to kiss down the length of his body as Trish got up and lifted her arms from the sleeves of her drooping bathrobe, so that she was completely nude from the waist up. Almost immediately after Trish had moved around to the long end of the bed, Veronica was straddling his waist, facing him, and lowering herself onto his cock, which Trish had gripped firmly to guide it in. Soon Harry felt her vagina open up to accept his cock, and Veronica let out a moan.

"That's good," Harry said, and Veronica nodded in agreement as she began to ride him slowly.

"Harry, straighten your legs," Trish said, and when he complied, she brought a leg over as well and took up a position directly behind Veronica, so that it looked like the two of them were riding him together. Trish brought her hands to Veronica's shoulders and began caressing them, and Veronica smiled as she closed her eyes and began to increase the speed.

"How do we look, Harry?" Trish asked as she hugged herself in close to Veronica, bringing her head to the side to kiss her cheek.

"That looks awesome," he said, "I can't believe it."

"Can't believe what?" Trish asked, grinning, her eyes lit up as she watched his face.

"Can't believe he's fucking two girls, I bet," Veronica said, pursing her lips mockingly.

"Something like that," Harry laughed.

"Hm..." Trish said, as she brought her hands down to Veronica's hips and guided the motion. "Well, we are pretty good-looking women, if I do say so myself."




Rebuilding Harry Ch. 08



"You're both beautiful," Harry said, and the tight warmth around his cock and the sight of Veronica atop him made even more blood rush down below. He was starting to worry that he might not be able to last as long as he'd like. If he could have had a wish right then, it would have been to keep doing this forever. Unfortunately, Veronica was starting to contract her muscles in that way that seemed to almost will the cum out of him, and he wasn't sure how much longer he would last.

"Maybe we better slow down," Trish said, and Veronica opened her eyes and nodded, and she stopped the rocking motion then to lean back into Trish's embrace. Trish responded by bringing her hands up to Veronica's large breasts, and she cupped them and lifted them a little. Veronica closed her eyes and brought a hand back to stroke Trish's face, at which point they turned their faces towards each other and kissed deeply, even letting their tongues explore each others' mouths. Harry was out of his mind, and he brought his hands up over Trish's, and together they both squeezed Veronica's breasts.

"Wow," Veronica said to nobody in particular, after she stopped kissing Trish.

"Hold on," Trish said. "I want to get some lubricant."

"Gosh, I don't even need any!" Veronica laughed. "Do you want it for yourself?"

"In a manner of speaking," Trish chuckled, as she went over to the nightstand. Harry admired her figure as she walked, as Veronica began to buck on top of him again, this time leaning down closer to him. When Trish pulled out a small bottle from the drawer, she turned back to see Veronica riding him that way, and she said, "That's perfect. Keep going like that."

"Why?" Veronica asked breathily, before leaning in to kiss Harry, pressing her breasts against him.

"It's just something I got into my head soon after watching that video," Trish said, as she opened the bottle and poured some fluid onto her fingers, and crawled back on top of the bed to resume her position behind Veronica, only sitting a little further back from her. Harry watched as Trish rubbed her fingers to spread the fluid all around, and then brought them to the base of his cock, right over his balls, circling them a little and saying, "Do you like that?"

"Yes," Harry said, hardly able to form to word around Veronica's tongue, which was deep in his mouth.

Suddenly, the sensation stopped, but a second later Veronica jolted forward a second and gave a little squeal.

"Do you like that?" Trish asked again, and Veronica laughed, before turning her head to the side to look back at Trish, an action which almost drowned Harry in her hair as it tumbled over him.

"What's going on?" he asked quickly, not wanting to be left out.

Veronica turned back to face him, and the look in her eyes was electric. "Your wife," she said, "has stuck a finger up my ass."

"Oh wow!" Harry said, at which point he noticed that Trish had completely removed her bathrobe, and was now working with the bottle again.

"You don't know the half of it," Veronica said, continuing to buck now, not just against Harry's throbbing cock, but also his wife's finger.

"Actually," Trish said, "neither do you."

"Huh?" Veronica asked, but immediately Harry could feel that Trish was advancing so that her pelvis was right behind Veronica's. The weight of the two of them held his thighs completely flat against the bed, so that he could barely move along with Veronica's motion.

In a heartbeat, though, the motion stopped. "What...?" Veronica asked.

"Stay down over him," Trish said, and Veronica complied, but she didn't resume fucking him. Instead, he felt her hold completely still, and then tense up quickly. Harry looked up at her, and saw that her eyes were closed, and she was concentrating deeply upon something as she bit the corner of her mouth. He brought his hands up to her breasts and started massaging them, but she didn't move. Harry felt what seemed like Trish advancing on her, but whatever it was that was going on, he wanted to start moving again, so he brought his hands down to Veronica's hips.

"Just a second, Harry," Trish said.

"Yeah," Veronica said, breathing in and out. "Just... a second... Oh God."

"What's going on down there?" Harry asked.

"Oh GOD!" Veronica shouted, and slowly she began to move again, only this time her eyes were wide open. Harry tilted his head to the side to get a view, and he noticed that Trish had taken the position directly behind Veronica again, only this time she was rotating her hips a little, an act which made her breasts circle slightly in a really pleasing way. When he looked down at her hips to watch the action Trish was performing more closely, he noticed that there was a strap going from her crotch around her hip.

"What the..." Harry said, before bringing his head to the other side, and saw a matching strap there as well.

"Harry," Veronica said. "Oh Harry... Oh Trish... Fuck..."

"Just keep going, Harry," Trish said. "Just keep screwing her and I'll do the same."

Veronica's motions became more fluid, and soon she was arching her back to accept the pleasure from both Harry and whatever it was that Trish was wearing.

"What do you have on there, Trish?" Harry asked.

"Just a little something I bought for this evening," Trish said.

"She's fucking me in the ass with a strap-on, Harry," Veronica said breathlessly, "You're both fucking me, Harry. Both of you. I have never felt anything like this in my life."

"Oh God," Harry said as the image entered his head of his wife taking Veronica from behind as she rode him. As Veronica pressed her head into his chest, Harry looked to see Trish straddled behind Veronica, rocking her own hips forward and back as her caressed Veronica's hips. Veronica then brought her hands up to the headboard and was pushing against it to steady herself. Harry brought his hands up to meet his wife's on Veronica's hips, and together the two synchronized their movements so both the dildo and his cock were penetrating Veronica at the same time.

"Shit," Veronica said. "Shit guys, I'm going to cum."

"Go ahead, Veronica," Trish said, and Veronica turned her head to look at Trish as she began to quicken the pace of the bucking. Trish smiled at her, and brought one hand up from Veronica's hip to her mouth, which Veronica started to suck. "How about you, Harry?" Trish asked. "Are you close?"

Harry was feeling like he was in heaven, both with the physical sensation and the visual before him, but he still felt that an orgasm was a little while off. "Not yet," he grunted.

"That's okay," Trish said. "I'd hate to think you'd be spent when it came to be my turn."

Suddenly, Trish began to quicken the movements even more, and Veronica inhaled deeply, letting Trish's finger fall free from her lips as she turned to face Harry again. Harry began to speed up the motion as well, and Veronica yelled, "Oh my God!" before dipping her head down to kiss Harry. "Oh, oh... oh God, Harry," she gasped at him, as she started to buck harder still as they struggled to kiss each other. Harry in turn grasped his wife's hand firmly, and their fingers interlocked and squeezed as they both continued to force themselves deeper into Veronica. "Oh... shit... oh God Harry... oh Trish... oh my God you two..." she responded with each of their thrusts. "Oh my God... I love this so much... Oh Harry, I can't stop it now... I can't... oh God!" With that, she locked her lips on his, and breathily yelled out in a rhythm that matched the fucking, and Harry felt her cunt tighten around his cock, the undulations matching the timing of their penetrations, and Harry brought a hand up to her cheek, holding her head in place as he kissed her throughout the entirety of the orgasm. Soon, after nine of her yells, she stopped bobbing up and down over him, and instead slowed down so that both his cock and the dildo were at their deepest within her, and she came to a rest, turning her head to the side as she collapsed against him.

As Trish stood up, finally revealing to both Veronica and Harry the strap-on garment she was wearing, he rolled over to let Veronica off him. They watched as she stood there, brushing the hair from her eyes with a satisfied smile on her face. Veronica's eyes went down and studied the contraption. The garment was crotchless, which explained how she was able to masturbate under the bathrobe when she was watching them earlier. It was made of leather and was holding the dildo at a sharply erect angle. The dildo itself was black and rubber, but not very large and only vaguely shaped like a penis.

"Was it only that big?" Veronica asked. "It felt much bigger."

Trish chuckled as she leaned over to lower it from her waist. "Did you like it?" she asked, looking up from her bent-over stance. Harry couldn't keep his eyes off the way her breasts hung in that position. Her nipples were still very hard.

Veronica nodded, exhaling quickly before laughing. "I've never done that before."

"Done what?" Trish asked as she stood up again, showing off her toned body. "Anal sex? Or with a dildo?"

"Neither," Veronica said. "And never with a woman, either."

"Well," Trish said, bringing a knee up onto the bed and leaning forward, towering over them as she prepared to crawl forward, "how did you like it?"

Veronica smiled. "It was nice." She looked over at Harry. "I know I said I'd do her, but I never really thought..."

Trish raised her eyebrows. "You said that?"

Veronica looked back at Trish and nodded again, letting her eyes look all over Trish's body. She bit her lip thoughtfully before shuffling backwards to make room in the middle of the bed for Trish to join them. "I'd had fantasies, but really silly ones, like with movie stars or something. I'd seen some erotic movies that had lesbian scenes and thought it might be fun, if it weren't as ridiculous as it looked on screen."

Trish grinned as she brought her other knee onto the bed, and made her catlike way up between the two of them, before settling down and turning over onto her back, resting one hand on each of their thighs.

"How about you, Harry?" Trish asked, turning her head towards him. "Did you like it?" Her face was very close, and when he leaned in to kiss her, he inhaled her perfume, and the contrast between it and Veronica's drove him wild. Veronica propped herself up on her elbow and admired their embrace, bringing a hand up to Trish's flat stomach and rubbing it.

"That's not an answer," Trish laughed when they stopped kissing.

"It's not?" Harry asked. "I would have thought it'd be pretty obvious how I liked it."

"I want to hear you say it," Trish said, smiling coyly.

"I liked it a little," Harry said.

"A little?" Trish asked, before looking down at his cock, which was still erect and pointing straight up at their faces. She brought a hand to it and gently tugged on the shaft, before looking up at him and said, "If you only liked it a little, maybe we should stop."

"Well," Harry shrugged, "I'm willing to keep going for a while."

Trish laughed and looked back at Veronica. Their faces were very close now, with Veronica's full lips hovering above Trish's mouth, and their eyes locked on each other in a way that really excited Harry. It was such a turn on to know that this experience might be as powerful for them as it was for him. "What do you think, Veronica?" Trish asked, her eyes going down to catch a glimpse of Veronica's full breasts. "Do you think we should keep going for a while?"

Veronica nodded, before looking down at Trish's body as well, and bringing the hand that was on her stomach up to her sternum, tracing a line up and down her cleavage, before glancing back up to meet Trish for a long embrace. Harry watched this for a couple of seconds before he couldn't help but grab Trish's hand on his cock and guide it to a slightly faster rhythm, being careful not to intrude upon the sight of Veronica and Trish making out before him. The two continued to kiss for a while before Trish broke off the embrace, and they looked down as Veronica's hand came up to hold one of Trish's breasts, her thumb and index finger pinching the nipple, a motion that made Trish close her eyes, bend her head back and smile, Veronica's hair falling over his face in the action. Veronica then adjusted her position so that she leaning over Trish's body a little, and she kissed her way down from Trish's neck to the nipple of the breast she was holding, and when she took it into her mouth Trish let out a soft moan, and Harry could feel the pleasure in the way she gripped his cock a little more firmly. She lifted her hand arm up, interrupting Veronica's suckling momentarily, so that she could bring it back and wrap it around to Veronica's back, holding Veronica in place as she continued to kiss Trish's breast. Then she shifted her weight a little to raise her knees up and tugged on Harry's cock instructively, and he understood what she wanted. He lowered himself a little so that he could bring his pelvis below her crotch and enter her that way, as he remembered this position - her lying on her back as he fucked her while lying on his side - to be one of her favourites from before. His face was now right next to her other breast, and he leaned in to kiss it, and Veronica moaned again, unable to contain her happiness at having a mouth on each of her nipples. It was a long time since Harry last made love to his wife, but much of the sensations were flooding back, the way her nipple got so amazingly erect when she was aroused, the way her fingers stroked his back as he fucked her this way, the way his cock felt within her, the tightness of her vagina well-balanced by the dampness of it, the way she breathed in time with each of his thrusts, her exhales seemingly full of lust. It was such a wonderful feeling, and he'd missed it so much, but he'd never known that it'd be a feeling he'd be sharing now with someone new. As he continued to kiss her breast, he raised his eyes and saw that Veronica was looking back at him as she continued to suck on Trish's other nipple, and she had a smokeyness in her eyes that made his balls almost clench right up. He changed the angle of his penetration, and altered the motion so that his hips were rotating a little, and Trish chuckled out loud as he felt her fingers claw into his back.

"Wow," she said. "That feels so good, you guys."

"Does it?" Veronica asked as she let Trish's nipple slip from her full lips. She raised herself back up to kiss Trish on the mouth, and Harry strained to watch it.

"Mmmm," Trish said as they kissed, before she broke off and smiled at Veronica. "Have you ever had two mouths on your breasts before? It feels sooooo good."

"No," Veronica said, "I haven't. I want to now, though." At that moment, she sat up slowly, so that her own breasts were right in front of Trish's face. Trish smiled as she opened her mouth, waiting for Veronica to lower one of her own nipples right into it, which she did, but slowly, and only after she'd brought a hand down to Harry's face to get him to look up as well, and the moment he did he saw Trish's tongue meeting the large areola on Veronica's massive breast. The sight was so beautiful that it made him shiver, and Veronica looked at him, and cupping her other breast fully, lifted it up and outward so that it was within a few inches of his own face. All three shifted their positions slightly so as to accomodate what Veronica wanted to do, and soon Harry and Trish each had one of Veronica's large breasts at their disposal, their mouths and tongues thoroughly exploring each of Veronica's swollen nipples, with Veronica smiling and gasping throughout, her free hand caressing both of them as much as she could.

Harry was so turned on at this point that he couldn't help but quicken the pace, a move which caused Trish to part from Veronica's nipple and concentrate on the pleasure from being fucked her favourite way. "God," she said, before looking up at Veronica and saying, "Can I ask a favour?" By now, Harry was so turned on by listening to Trish talk to Veronica in the middle of sex, he was wondering how he'd ever be able to do without it.

"Sure," Veronica asked, watching appreciatively as Trish continued to rock in rhythm with Harry. "What?"

"I'm going to roll over so my husband can do me from behind," Veronica said. "Can you, sort of, position yourself under my pussy?"

"Oh my," Veronica laughed. "All sorts of firsts this evening."

"If it makes you uncomfortable..." Trish began, but Veronica had already inverted herself on the bed, and Harry was wild with the vision of seeing Veronica's pussy so close to his wife's face.

"We're even from the dildo after this, though," Veronica laughed, as she turned onto her back, preparing to accept both Harry and Trish over the top of her. Trish gave him a quick look asking if he was ready, and he nodded. Without removing himself from inside her, the two rolled over sideways, Trish bringing her leg over Veronica's face so that she was just about straddling it, and Harry following close behind, with Veronica holding her hair in a makeshift ponytail so that neither of them would kneel on it by accident. The three had to shuffle sideways to get back into the middle of the bed, but before long Harry was beginning to take his wife from behind, with Trish's head bobbing forwards and back between Veronica's bent knees. Almost immediately, he felt Veronica's hands come up from behind and clutch his ass playfully, and he brought his own hands to Trish's ass, holding each cheek fully.

"Yeah," Trish said. "That's it, Harry."

"Wow," Veronica said as Harry continued to penetrate Trish right in front of her face. "This is so cool."

"How's the view?" Harry laughed between heavy breaths, bringing his head to the side so that he could see what was almost a sixty-nine between Veronica and his wife. It was a beautiful sight, as theirs breasts pressed into each others' bellies, and their curves seemed to compliment each other so perfectly. Then it got better, as Veronica, electing not to answer, put her mouth to better use, and he felt her tongue stroking his balls as they rocked back and forth. Soon, though, they were so tight that she had to lift her head up to catch them completely in her mouth, and she started sucking them.

"Oh God," he said. "Oh, that's nice."

"Are you having fun with my husband there?" Trish asked, looking back over her shoulder at Harry. She had a smile on her face, and he wanted to smile back, but he couldn't contain the pleasure of it. It didn't matter though, because her smile dissipated as the look of lust on her face mirrored his, and she bit her lip as she kept staring at him intently. Then the feeling on his balls stopped, to his slight disappointment, before Trish's eyes opened wide up and she let out a gasp. "Oh, Veronica!" she said.

Veronica responded with a slight moan, and Harry watched as her hands moved from his ass to hers, and his and Veronica's fingers interlocked as they gripped her. He listened and could hear the light slapping sounds of oral sex, and he could feel the movement as Veronica's hair tickled its way up and down his thighs with each administration of her mouth upon his wife's cunt. He was the one staring wide-eyed now, as Trish looked back at him with her mouth wide open and a pained look on her face.

"God," she said. "Suck on my clit if you can, Veronica." There was another pause as Veronica squirmed her body downwards a little, and then another moan from his wife. "Oh yes! That's right, right there. I want to do it that way until I come. I want to come all over your face." She closed her eyes and quickened the pace of her part in the doggystyle, before looking back at Harry again and saying, "I want it so that after I come, and you pull out and come all over her. Can we do that, Harry?"




Rebuilding Harry Ch. 08



"We might," Harry said, as he felt the beginnings of a surge deep within his anus, where he imagined his prostate must be, but before long he realized that Trish was actually much closer to orgasm than he was, as he listened to the familiar sounds of her building up to it that he remembered from a long time ago. When she did come before, she had a way of moaning that became longer and out of rhythm with the sex, that almost always seemed like it was out of his ability to affect. He didn't mind now, though, and figured that Veronica was actually having a lot more to do with his wife's orgasm than he was, since she usually came from clitoral stimulation anyway. Still, it was impressive to think that Veronica had any sort of skill at something like this, if it really was her first time. It was beginner's luck, perhaps, but right then, she must have done something exceptionally well, because Trish suddenly arched her back and looked down between Veronica's open legs, and, putting all of her weight on one elbow, she brought her free hand up between them and lowered her face, and suddenly Veronica let out a moan, and she had to break contact from Trish's vagina again.

"That's nice!" she said desperately. "Please, I'm so close too! Could you...?" Trish immediately responded by lowering her head completely, and Veronica let out a muffled yell as she dove her face back onto Trish's clitoris. Harry watched as Veronica's hands left Trish's ass, and quickly slid up the sides of her body before grabbing Trish's breasts fully. Trish's asynchronous moans became a little louder, and then were intermixed with Veronica's. Then, one of Veronica's hands shot up to grab Harry's and drag it down to her own breasts, so that both women were being fondled as the build-up to orgasm continued. Harry brought both of his hands down to grab them, which forced some of his weight onto Trish, but her legs were strong enough to hold it all together, and he gradually increased the speed even more, dictating the pace of the three of them rocking together, as his hands cupped Veronica's tits firmly in such a way that he could pinch the nipples between his middle and index fingers. Veronica was back at Trish's breasts, and both of their moans got louder, as though they were competing to let out a noisier orgasm than the other. Harry then held nothing back and completely pounded away into Trish, who responded by beginning to yell, but not without taking her face away from Veronica's vagina, which she must have been stimulating with added zeal because it led to an even greater noise from Veronica below. Harry closed his eyes to take it all in, and the crescendo finally came as Trish absolutely screamed into Veronica's pussy, with Veronica answering in kind into Trish's. He felt Trish's vagina take a stranglehold on his cock and then squeeze it seven times, as his hands felt Veronica's body shake as she had her orgasm as well, and after twenty seconds, when they'd both subsided, Harry began to slow down. Inexplicably, although his balls were as hard as they'd ever been in his wife, he hadn't come yet.

***

After a few deep sighs shared between Veronica and Trish, who lay collapsed against each other, Harry finally withdrew out of Trish's vagina to go to the bathroom. Before he reached the door, though he heard Veronica from behind.

"Harry?" she asked. "Did you?" He saw Trish look up as well. He shook his head.

"Nope," he said.

Trish laughed. "I'm going to need a break before we continue," she said. "Anyone want water from the fridge?"

"Yeah," Harry said.

"Good," Trish laughed. "You can get it."

"Right," Harry said. "Nice try. Seems to me you two have to take care of me now."

Trish pouted, but it twisted into a smile as she got up, quickly grabbing her discarded bathrobe and loosely throwing it on before striding from the room. Veronica reoriented herself rightside up on the bed, and lay against the pillow, looking up at the ceiling and smiling to herself.

When Harry reached the bathroom, he didn't actually need to do anything more than splash some water on his face, but the intensity of the situation was such that he wanted a breather. As he poured the cold tap out, he thought of everything that was just so wonderful waiting for him back in there, and he looked in the mirror. He wondered what would be next. He hadn't come yet, so maybe they'd take turns giving him a blow job, or maybe he'd run down and grab some milk from the fridge and have he and Trish pour it over Veronica's chest so she could have that breastfeeding fetish she mentioned before satisfied, or maybe he'd take turns on the both of them, missionary-style, taking turns so that as he fucked one the other would be curled into them, stroking their bodies, or maybe Veronica would be ready to have another go, and he could lie on his back as she'd ride him again, only this time with Trish at his side, or maybe even straddled on his face, so that she and Veronica could embrace above him. He could enjoy that view, their breasts pressed against each other as... almost immediately he felt the stirrings below again, and he grinned at himself in the mirror.

And then he thought about what would happen after that. Would Trish want Veronica to spend the night? Would the three of them sleep together in that bed? Would they hang out on Sunday? Was this in the end just a one-night thing? Or was it going to become more domestic than that?

The questions suddenly expanded much longer than that. Would he just go back to work on Monday? Would Veronica stay with him after his promotion? When she graduated law school, would she want to pursue a career in it? What if she did, and was offered a job outside Hellespont? Even if she stuck around, would Trish be willing to let this whole thing continue? How would things be, the next time they were alone together? How about with Veronica? Could he make this thing last longer, maybe even make it permanent?

It took him a second to get out of his imagination to refocus on his reflection in the mirror. He could hear some rustling in the next room, which meant that Trish was probably back with the water, and the thought of the three of them taking a civilized break before more debauchery made him smile. He looked at that smile in the mirror, and it was goofy enough to almost make him laugh, but Veronica snuck up behind him and wrapped her hands around him and gave him a quick hug, pressing her curvaceous body into his back.

"Your wife was kind enough to get us water," she said, smiling at him through the mirror as one of her hands went down to stroke his cock with the edge of her fingers.

"That's good," he said, looking back at her. "Tell me, Veronica, why haven't we been doing this more often?"

Veronica shrugged. "You tell me."

She then gave him a wink and walked out, leaving him alone with a giddy feeling in his stomach. Suddenly, he found himself in familiar territory, thinking about the future the way he used to, but whereas before those thoughts had always been mixed with anxiety and dread, right now there was only joy.

"Don't think, just relax," he said, knowing that just like most of the other emotionally charged moments in his life, this joy could pass just as easily as the other, more painful moments had. But then, it was as though there was a fire in him that wouldn't be so easily quelled, and he realized that of all those other questions he'd just been asking himself, the answer to none of them mattered. There would be bad times, certainly, either with Trish and Veronica, or maybe with his new job, or maybe something that hadn't even come up yet -- since all good things eventually have to come to an end. The answer wasn't so much in a question as it was to ignore the questions, and to concentrate on the good things he had while he could, and get the most out of them.

He turned around and walked back into the room. Veronica and Trish were curled up on the bed, facing each other, both takings sips from their glasses as they sat silently, Veronica playing with the edge of Trish's robe with her fingers. Harry saw his own glass waiting on the nightstand, but suddenly he wasn't thirsty for it anymore, and he quickly made his way back to the bed.

"Don't you want your water?" Trish asked, as he curled up behind Veronica's naked body, feeling the life coming back to his loins, as strong as ever. He looked her in the eyes, smiled, and shook his head. Trish chuckled. "Ungrateful bastard," she said.

"I'll drink it after I've had a good seeing-to, thanks very much," he said, his eyes lit up in an effort to prod her.

Veronica looked back at him with a surprised look on her face. "In charge now, are you?" she asked.

"For the next little while, yes," he said. "I think I've earned a little consideration."

"Mmmm..." Veronica said, looking back at Trish. "I guess we don't really have any choice, do we?"

"You're probably right," Trish said. "After all, his is the only cock in the room."

"The only real cock, anyway," Veronica said, grinning, before turning back to him. "Alright, for now, you get your way." She then turned her body towards him and kissed him, before grabbing him and then rolling backwards so that he went over her and into the tight space between her and Trish. It was a skillfully executed move, and he was caught off-guard by it, but the disorientation wore off as he felt both of their mouths on him, first on his chest and then slowly going downward.

He closed his eyes, thankful, but not altogether sure who he should be thankful to. Trish, for inviting Veronica? Veronica, for accepting the invite? Himself, for having hired Veronica in the first place? Luck, for having thrown them all together? As their lips closed around his cock, he discarded those ideas, discarded the past entirely and instead decided to just be thankful to the moment, and as he felt the familiar feeling of Veronica's lips going up and down his cock under the semi-familiar grip of Trish's hand grasping the base of it, and he imagined the beautiful image of his wife admiring Veronica as she worked, only to then feel a second pair of lips closing around his balls, each seeming to complement each other's movements, only to suddenly feel them break their embrace, explained, when he opened his eyes, by the fact that they'd decided to kiss each other for a moment, Trish maintaining her grasp upon him while Veronica's hand joined hers, and each joining each other's slight stroking motion so that they were both jerking him off together as they continued to kiss each other, whereupon he further decided that the best way to pay the moment back was to make the best use of that moment as could be made of it, and when they stopped kissing and returned to their collaborative fellatio, Veronica continuing to work the head of his penis while Trish was back upon his balls and rubbing an inexplicably moistened finger over his asshole, which she then slowly inserted and drove gently but deeply towards his prostate, all the while keeping up her end of the pleasuring with Veronica, the sight of which, two beautiful women's heads slowly bobbing up and down around his cock, brought him slowly but determinedly towards his own orgasm, he realized that his decision was the only one to make, so he closed he eyes upon the eve of the impending climax to fully enjoy it.

Which he did.