Corporate Seduction

It was Thursday morning, and Reka couldn’t wait for the weekend. Even though her weekends were now spent quite differently than in her past, she still looked forward to her personal time. Opening her Inbox, she scrolled down through her new messages and sighed as she glimpsed an all too familiar sender.

To: [email protected]

From: Jack

Subject: The Naughty and Nice Collection

She’s still not giving in. What should I do? I thought of buying her something. Maybe something from the Tantalizing Thongs Collection would give her a clue and help speed things up? What do you think?

Jack

“After all these months you still haven’t slept with Jill?” Reka rolled her eyes, right clicked and deleted the message. “You ask too many questions, that’s your problem, Jack, ole boy.”

She had to smile to herself at the latest of the sexual emails the office had been inundated with. It had started about three months ago and, at first, Cienna and Tacoma, the new office manager, had just assumed they were a joke. But then the sexually charged messages had begun appearing with more frequency and much more urgency from their originator, Jack.

Now the entire office seemed focused on these messages. Most of them wondered who they were from, speculating about the staff, as well as the attorneys, especially since love connections were known to happen in this office. Some of the more simpleminded employees, though, took the messages all too literally. On any given day talk in the lunchroom was of the steamy messages and the thoughts they provoked. Tacoma had had more than a few reports of quickies in the storage room and had even caught Nigel, from the mailroom, and Kelly, from accounting, hugged up in the stairway acting out a previous email, one entitled Exciting Edibles.

Tacoma was hyperventilating by the time Reka had made it to his office after his urgent page for her. The male/female connection was not his cup of tea, which was clearly understandable since he was now engaged to his longtime boyfriend, Terry.

Reka, however, didn’t take the unsolicited emails quite so literally, but had to admit that lately they seemed to exacerbate her own situation—no boyfriend, no prospects and no inclination to find either.

* * *

Cienna Turner-Page clicked the icon that would load Microsoft Outlook onto her computer. She flipped through the day’s schedule while listening to the computer go through the motions. When her screen blinked with the familiar background, she clicked into the Inbox and began a cursory glance at the subject line of this morning’s messages. ‘The Naughty and Nice Collection’ caught her eye and she instantly positioned the mouse to open that particular message.

Cienna read the words and stifled a scream. Jack was beginning to piss her off. She had a lunch meeting with her longtime client, Johnathan Peterson, the CEO of Sensuality, Inc., a lucrative lingerie company, and planned on discussing this situation again for the billionth time in the last three months. She had no idea how the emails that had first appeared throughout his growing company had found their way to her law firm as well. But she was damn sure going to find out.

Picking up her telephone, she dialed a familiar number.

“Judge Page’s chambers,” Gayle, the receptionist, answered in a cheery voice.

“Good morning, Gayle. Is the judge on the bench yet this morning?”

Gayle smiled at the friendly, familiar voice on the other end. “Oh, hello, Cienna. No, he’s having his usual cup of caffeine right now.”

Cienna chuckled. Keith said he needed all the caffeine he could get before dealing with the lunatics that came through his family division courtroom. “In that case, I can interrupt him.”

“You sure can. I’ll put you right through.”

“Thanks, Gayle.”

“No problem,” the woman said happily before ringing Keith’s office to announce that his wife was on the line.

“Mornin’, beautiful. You miss me already?” Keith Page looked at his watch, noting that he’d left his Greenwich Village house only about an hour ago after his lovely wife had given him a very satisfying send-off. If she didn’t miss him already, he damn sure missed her.

“I miss you every minute we’re apart,” Cienna sighed, still helplessly in love with her husband after three years of marriage. “But that’s not why I’m calling,” she added quickly. Behind closed office doors, she and Keith had shared some pretty steamy telephone conversations, and this had the potential to go there, unless she cut it off quickly. “We’ve got a problem.”

“A problem?” Keith sat up in his chair. “What’s up?”

“I got another message this morning. From Jack.”

Keith knew very well who Jack was, and how the pervert was wreaking havoc on the firm he partnered with his wife. “Forward it to me now.”

Cienna did as he asked and waited while he read it.

Initially, Keith chuckled. “I’ve seen the Tantalizing Thongs. That just might work, Jack.”

“Keith!” Cienna was not feeling his humor.

“Just kidding, sweetie. This is serious, I know. It’s been three months now, and this guy hasn’t let up.”

“What are we going to do? Everybody’s walking around here like they’re in heat or as if they’re amateur detectives trying to figure out who in the firm could be sending them. Attendance is down, morale is shot to hell since nobody can keep their mind on the business of law. I’m sick to death of the jokes and banter going around on a daily basis and, to top it off, Johnathan plans to release the new collection in four weeks. Just imagine how this thing is going to explode once the public gets wind of the collection
and
the sex-orientated emails.”

“Calm down, baby. I’ll take care of it,” Keith assured her.

“How?”

“I’ve been talking to this computer guy I know. I offered him a job a few years ago but he turned me down. I’ll just give him a call and tell him that I really need him this time.”

“You think he’ll be able to find out who’s sending these messages so we can prosecute for harassment?” Cienna wasn’t very optimistic, but realized this might possibly be their only hope.

“He’s the best.”

“Okay, when can I meet him?” she asked.

“I’ll invite him over for dinner tonight. Print out all the messages and bring them home, I’m sure he’ll want to see them.”

“You’re inviting him to our home? You know him that well?” She was a little shocked. She knew all of Keith’s friends and wasn’t sure she’d ever met a computer guy before.

“It’s Khalil. You know, we play ball on Saturdays. I’ve told you about him, haven’t I?” Keith asked the question although he already knew the answer. He hadn’t told his wife about Khalil, mostly because a reason had never come up, but partly because of the business Khalil was in.

“I don’t think so. But I vaguely remember him from the cookout last summer.” She was getting a blurry picture of the friend Keith was referring to.

“Well, you’ll meet him tonight, and we’ll get to the bottom of this. Don’t worry.”

Cienna read over the message again and sighed. “That’s easy for you to say. You’re not going to be hearing ‘The Thong Song’ all day.”

* * *

Seated in his high-backed soft leather chair, Khalil desperately tried to dismiss the conversation he’d just had with his mother. It was just too damned early in the morning for that type of drama. Besides, he’d made his mind up and this time, Cornelia Hughes Franklin was going to have to accept it.

He was about to go over the report a new employee had left on his desk last night when Carol, his assistant, buzzed through the speaker phone.

“Judge Page on line one,” she stated in a professional voice.

Khalil grinned. He’d put a hurtin’ on Keith in Saturday’s game. If he knew his friend, Keith was already calling to talk trash about this weekend’s rematch. “You feelin’ better, old man?” he asked when he lifted the receiver to his ear.

“Feelin’ better?” Keith queried.

Khalil couldn’t help chuckling. “Yeah, after that butt whuppin’ I served you a few days ago.”

“Ah, man, please. You just got lucky, that’s all. It’s about time you started playin’ like you had some skills. Those Ivy League schools made you soft.” Keith laughed. “But that’s not what I’m calling about.”

“Really? What else can I do for you?”

“Remember those email problems I told you we were having at the firm?”

Khalil sat back in his chair, abandoning the reports. He remembered the problem, and didn’t want to miss anything. The erotic emails his friend had mentioned a few weeks ago had sparked his interest. “Yeah. Is the firm still getting them?”

“Mmmhmm. Cienna forwarded me another one this morning. She’s really upset, says everybody’s more focused on who’s sending the messages and why than on work now.”

Khalil thought of his own non-existent sex life. “There are worse things then sex that they could be thinking about.”

“I agree, but not at work. I want you to come take a look, see if you can find out who’s sending them so we can prosecute.”

Franklin Investigations had just opened its second office in Connecticut, so Khalil didn’t need another client. It was purely personal intrigue that had him consenting to help Keith. “Sure. When can I gain access to the computer system at the firm?”

“As soon as I convince Cienna to hire you as the firm’s new IT tech. I don’t want her to know you’re an investigator. She might get nervous.”

“But I thought she wanted to prosecute?”

“She does, but ever since all that stuff went down a few years ago, the police and investigations make her a little jumpy. That’s why she stopped handling complex litigation cases. I just told her that you’re a computer geek and that you could probably find our culprit.”

“A computer geek, huh?” Khalil shook his head at the familiar jab. Most of his friends had dubbed him that long ago. His family was very proud of his computer skills, but wished he’d use them at the family’s investment company instead of his investigation firm. Sonya, however, hadn’t really cared what his interests were, as long as the bank account kept growing.

Keith grinned. He knew the nickname would needle Khalil, and he so loved to keep his buddy going. “Yeah, that means you know your stuff.”

“No, it doesn’t.” Khalil chuckled. “But I’ll go along with your plan anyway. When do I start my new position?”

Keith rubbed his hands together, confident that Khalil would get to the bottom of this, and quickly. “Come by for dinner tonight and we’ll talk over the logistics with Cienna.”

“Now you know I don’t pass up a free meal. I’ll be there.”

The men finished the conversation with more basketball banter before hanging up. Sexy emails being sent to an office full of lawyers. Khalil couldn’t figure out the connection, but was sure there had to be one. He picked up his phone and gave Carol a list of cases to distribute among the other investigators. He needed a break from the office anyway. He’d been working really hard and, now that he had a competent staff, he could finally take some time for other things.

A simple computer case like this would take his mind off Sonya and the disaster their breakup had been, and it would probably add some spice to his otherwise boring life. Erotic emails definitely sounded like a lot of that.