“She’s crazy! And, she’s uncontrollably horny!” Bob stands before the vanity mirror in his master bathroom, drops his slacks and boxer shorts to the floor and examines his erection lightly with his hand, staring at what he is doing in the mirror, musing about Frank and his dick. He unbuttons his shirt and opens it. He is sure Shenar and Frank are hooked to each other sexually, and he is sure that is why Frank isn’t showing any interest at all in interfering with what is now being referred to as “the competition”. Shenar has him on a sexual leash. That's it. She hasn’t yanked him in, yet, but the leash is attached. Securely.

Bob closes his eyes, lolls his head back, and summons a mental snapshot from earlier in the day of the shadows of Shenar’s separately molded buttocks, drapped in one of those weird skirts she wears, retreating out the door of the conference room.

What if Shenar’s idea promises to make a lot more money than any of his ideas? He might, then, amount to a financial drain. Could he afford to be against something that Sumitomo might consider banking on?

Bob grabs his dick and brandishes it, his eyes still closed, at his remembrance of Shenar leaning across the conference table, tense, exploding in his direction. How she had railed at him earlier this morning. This is what I should have given you, bitch, he thinks. I should have just taken my dick out and stroked it while you yelled at me. What would you have done?

Shenar recalled Bob sitting in his chair, heels resting on the edge of the table, hands clasped over his groin. A vision materialized of him sitting there, just that way, open at the fly, unhinged, stroking himself blissfully, unconcerned, sometimes looking at his hands, sometimes looking around the room, sometimes looking at her. She thought at the time, is this me or is he thinking this? She put off a determination until later.

Back at the lab, she imagined him stroking and massaging his dick, breathing noticeably. It was as though he was saying, there’s a way around me. Figure it out.

Bob imagines himself at the conference table, looking at the erotically caricatured face of Shenar looming over him. His dick is still out. He’s still playing with himself, playing with Shenar. She looks raw in her vigor. Except her tongue. He noticed the tip of her tongue before in the office, that first day. It is curiously flat. She mentioned, once, at the vending machine, that she couldn’t whistle because she couldn’t curl the tip of her tongue. He imagines the flat tip flicking over her lower lip and toward his head. They are in agreement. He opens his eyes and notices a bright bead at the tip of his dick.

Bob imagines Shenar in a belly dancer’s veils, approaching him through camouflage, using the powers of the weak. He scouts out his excitement with his hand as he watches her peel down her veils. He imagines her completely naked, but unexposed. Her fur is so thin he can see the shadow of her slit. Her nipples are unagitated. Her buttocks are tight. She undulates but does not shake. He watches Frank pick her up, pull her to him, and spear her. He hears her gasp and moan. He stops his fantasy before Frank, or he, comes.

He knows the turn his fantasies are taking is not good. He knows he would never approach Shenar. His imaginings are having a negative effect, though, on his feelings toward Frank. He does not understand why he can’t imagine Frank being enraged that Bob is raping them both.

He hates tainted episodes. This is exactly what he feels Shenar is doing to this project; tainting it with immorality, something slimy. Work should be inside the realm of morality. It is the ultimate morality; survival. He sometimes wonders if Shenar’s fascination with sexuality is evil, or at least, up to no good.

He will wait until later.

Text & Graphics © 1999 by Gail Rae Hudson

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