Longboard (Desk Surfing Series Book 1) (3 page)

              Longboard didn't look at me.  He didn't even turn around.  I saw him staring at the whiteboard.  I didn't know what he was looking at but it didn't seem normal for him to be overly interested in a plain whiteboard.  When I sat up to see what he was looking at, I was shocked.  Something had slipped my mind.  My boobs still had red marker painted on them.  But the girls left an impression on the whiteboard, like Warhol would have.  There were two red boob-smears on the whiteboard.  You could see a sloppy nipple mark in the middle.  My areolas didn't make the cut.  There was pretty much white space or pink space around the nipple mark.  Then there was just a somewhat circular smear.  It made me see another side of Longboard.  He had an avant-garde artistic side.  He was thinking ahead.  I guess that's how he got ahead.  Most guys would've just pinned me up against anything.  The last time I tried desk-surfing to climb the ladder at a company I was pinned against the bar top at the office manager's apartment.  I wasn't really trying to desk surf.  I was interested in the guy and the fact that he was three levels above me was a big help also.  But I caught a bigger wave with owner/founder/CEO.

              "I'm thinking I should find my way home before Dawn comes again."  My little joke was enough to get a turn back smile from Longboard.

              "It's close to one," said Longboard, "We've got a serious day tomorrow.  Some rest is in order."

              "Agreed."  I hopped down from the conference room table and walked barefoot across the carpet back to Longboard's office.  I didn't have time to fold my clothes as Longboard came into my personal space, so I had to pick my wrinkled shirt and skirt from the floor.  I hadn't planned to wear that skirt again that week so I wasn't bothered.  The only drawback to desk-surfing is getting caught.  If I got that year end promotion, I definitely didn't want anyone to think it was because of desk-surfing with the boss.  In fact, few promotions came that way.  You could get free food and a fatter bonus check but most managers always had in mind who would make a great manager.  And if it wasn't you, then it wasn't you.  You could ride all you wanted.  But if you were manager material and you surfed, you could have that promotion on lock.  The position was Office Manager and it had been vacant for nearly four months.  Longboard said he was going to announce his pick sometime after Thanksgiving holiday.  Brianna, the previous office manager, had left after a fallout with Longboard.  So far as I knew after Brianna left, the position was up for grabs.  And that's where I stood.  I was twenty-eight years old and mature enough to know that life is all about having what you want on lock.  Just ask any WAG, it's a daily struggle.  Ask Victoria Beckham or Tiger Woods' wife.  They got the harpoon in the whale but the challenge is keeping him from getting away again.  I didn't have my harpoon into Longboard just yet but I was aiming.  I even had my first mate bring the boat around for that closer shot, my girl Jessie.  She was my wing-woman.  And I needed to give her a situation update.

              After I got my clothes out of Longboard's office, I actually went back to my
quad
.  That was the name I gave to my cubicle.  On the floor, they were all set up in fours.  I thought about trying to make it to the ladies' room but if anyone were around they'd see me naked carrying my clothes and shoes.  And the ladies' room was across the hall.  So I headed back to my quad and turned my screen on so that if anything, I could look like I was working on something.  The shirt went on first, no bra. 
How would it have looked to have a bra with no shirt?
  A shirt with no bra was a sign of working horribly late.  It didn't mean I was riding the boss.  I slipped the skirt on, no panties.  I stuffed my bra and panties into my purse and I wiggled my toes into my ballerinas.  I looked around my desk to make sure there was nothing I missed and I locked my computer.  I looked in my purse for my keys and license because I didn't want the awkwardness of having to come back and see Longboard.  The next day would be fine because we'd both pretend like nothing happened.  But what do you say to someone after it just happened in the office?
Pleasure doing business with you.
I've never been that corny.

Chapter 2

             
I was feeling hectic as I drove back out to Paalea St., to my duplex and my carport.  I left Longboard staring at my boob impressions on the whiteboard.  I just never had anything like that before.  And I still had to go see him the next day, like I had just gone home and not stayed late.  Plus, for some reason I wasn't so sure I had left on a good note.  I was just as sure that I could come in the next day and get fired, as I could get that promotion.  And with no panties on, I had an uncommon sexy feeling.  It's not how I usually feel after staying at the office late.  It's not how I usually felt after coming home.  But I felt alluring.  One of the Island's most influential people had just given it to me twice over.  He was interested.  And he was interesting.  That's a win any way you wanna cut it.  With nothing covering the lips of my vagina, I felt like I was ready for another round.  I was tired but my pussy was suffering from pole angst.  My body was missing the fit of his width.  I could feel it in my skin.  I felt hungry, lacking something.  I just liked having a man inside me, a categorical man, not any swinging dick.  He wasn't just some surfer dude, like so many of my girls went for.  Sure the surfer guys had ripped bods.  The Hawaiian sun could chisel and already sculpted six pack.   But those were the guys you went after when you were sixteen.  Tattoos didn't do anything for me anymore, unless on Adam Levine.  But I never saw him on the Island. 

              The carport motion sensor lights came on and snapped me out of my girly-girl posture.  I was a working woman and had to do me.  I had to shower and get some sleep for the presentation that I had to give in a little less than nine hours.  My shower was longer than usual.  I never really stood under the water but that's what I did.  Occasionally, I would remember to scrub myself to get rid of some grime and dead skin cells but that was the extent of it.  I just stood.  Water draped over me until it got cold.  I took the loofah to my boobs.  That red marker had to come off.  I kept scrubbing until I used up all the hot water.  The funny thing was that only ever happened after a break up.  Most times, I was too much on-the-go to shower that long.  I never really used up all the hot water since I was a kid, since I had to start paying for it myself.  I toweled off and sent a text to my girl Jessie. 

             
Jst got home got a story to tell ya.  XOXO

              To my surprise she answered.  I guess she forgot to put her phone on silent while she slept.

                                                       
happy hour fri @gingersnap

              Knowing I probably woke her up I just texted back OK.  And I left it at that.  It was 2:34 in the morning on Wednesday.  I didn't know how to hold in what I had to tell her but every working girl's gotta do it from time to time.  I just tore the towel off and jumped into bed naked.  The clock was ticking and I wanted to look fresh the next day.  I didn't want Longboard to think I was fazed by him because that's probably what he wanted.  My rule was never give a guy what he wants unless he's earned it.  If he gave me the promotion, then I'd say he earned it.  But that was still a ways off, at least as far as I could see.  Things never moved as quick as the imagination.  And when I left Longboard, he was staring at a smear of my breasts against a whiteboard.  It was either a good thing or a bad thing but I wasn't naive enough to settle on either one.

              My sleep was off-and-on but my morning alarm clock wasn't trying to hear that.  I had to peel my back off the mattress like a pancake and do the morning.  I ran to the kitchen naked because I needed the coffee to be hot.  I took a morning shower just to wake up.  The water was hot again but I still didn't feel clean.  I felt
cleaned
.  I washed off the night before but I had to get
the
me
back.  Water running over my face always woke
the me
up.  I put my face directly under the shower head and let the water spar with my face.  My eyes started to feel sore so I threw in the towel and stopped the fight.  I dried off, then went to get my coffee and slipped two frozen waffles in the toaster.  I didn't always eat naked but I never ate breakfast in my work clothes.  That was a disaster waiting to happen.  When I'm still waking up, I'm uncoordinated.  That's why I drink my coffee, dress and pee all before getting into the car.  I have to focus when I'm driving early.  I focused all the way back to downtown Honolulu.  The drive from Paalea St. to Ward Avenue took about fifteen minutes, the way I drive.  The entrance to the building was on a one way street.  One way streets were always extra narrow in Honolulu.  But the sun was up, so I had a hard time not thinking it was going to be a good day.  I found a good parking spot on the second level.  It was difficult not to think about having my own spot at some point.  Promotions brought along perks and perks were good.  As I stepped in the elevator, I could feel my coffee kicking in.  I had that bright spot that was excited about the prospects of getting to work.  I didn't know if Longboard would be in his office but he didn't have a direct line-of-sight toward my quad anyway.  So I could go in and sit at my desk without Longboard seeing, even if he was already in.  But I didn't think he would be.  He never beat me to the office, even when we had a major presentation. 

              I left my purse at my desk and let my keys drop.  I went to the conference room with one thing on my mind.  I was sure Longboard hadn't left my boob stains on the whiteboard.  I walked a bit anxiously to the conference room.  I had to go all the way to the end of the row.  I went into the conference room to see what was what.  The whiteboard was clean, no boob stains.  There were some chocolates placed at every chair with the
Key Way Insurance
Logo on each. 
Key Way
was an Anglicanization of Longboard's last name, Kiewei.  And the logo had a skeleton key with the word Key Way substituting for teeth.  It wasn't anything bombastic but it was a neat little logo.  And it fit Longboard's style, classy.  There were also
Key Way
pens with legal pads and bottles of water.  Everything had the
Key Way
logo on it, even the water.  I was thinking the committee members would think Longboard an ego maniac.  That wouldn't be so far off.

                I went back down the row to see if I could get the assistant, Belinda, to also set some clean glasses and a few pitchers of fresh water.  We had water bottles but I figured those were for the road.  You always had to stay hydrated in Hawaii.  Even the grass was always dry from being beaten by the sun.  I went back to my desk and reviewed my
PowerPoint
.  I emailed it to Camille, the bottled-blonde California girl, who was temping at our company.  She was temp-to-perm but I didn't mind her.  If they made her permanent, it didn't really bother me.  I looked around for her but she wasn't in.  I sent her the
Where are you?
text and got no response because she was in the elevator.  She showed up about a minute after I sent the text. 

              "Hey Cam."  She saw me as she came in the front door.  She was sweet with dimples to match.  I couldn't stand her Barbie-doll antics for the first month.  But she was punctual and did everything I asked her to do, so she pretty much killed me with kindness.

              "Hey Boss-lady," said Camille.  Plus she called me Boss-lady, letting me know she knew where she stood. 

              "So I sent you our
PowerPoint
for today."

              "Right," said Camille, "And I got it and sent you confirmation."  I hadn't actually checked my email because I was riding Longboard's longboard, so I had to play it off.

              "Yep, I got your confirmation and wanted you to do me a quick favor 'fore the committee people show up."

              "What's that?" asked Camille.

              "Could you grab one of the laptops and set it up with a projector in the conference room?"

              "Yep," said Camille.

              "You know how to work the projector?"

              "Yep," said Camille. 

              "Perfect, if you need anything just let me know."

              "Will do," said Camille.  I went back to my desk to go over my slides.  I didn't want Longboard to think I was preoccupied with the night before.  My part of the presentation had to be smooth.  I mentally took myself through the steps of the presentation, but I stopped myself.  I remembered one thing, the name cards.  I hadn't put the name cards in each place.  We had it pre-organized who was to sit where.  Thankfully, I wasn't sitting next to Longboard.  I had the seating chart in my desk along with the name cards.  I walked straight toward the conference room.  I tried to hide the name cards in my underarm.  I didn't want anyone in the office to think I was so last minute.  In the conference room, I saw that Camille had set everything up.  The laptop was connected.  The projector was on but in standby mode.  And the drop-down screen was dropped down. 

              I felt something.  It made me think of that look Longboard had when I told him to work it from the back.  It was that dog with the perked up head kinda feeling.  I was in the conference room alone.  But I felt something.  I could feel his hand moving up the back of my thigh.  I turned around and heard a squeak.  Thank God I was in the conference room alone or someone would have seen me and thought I was a pill-popper or on Molly.  I looked around for a wild fifteen seconds trying to find out where the squeak came from.  It took me longer than it should've to realize it was my own squeak. 

              But I did feel something.  It made me think maybe women's intuition was, in fact, a thing.  I was in the same room where I last saw Longboard.  And I was feeling him.  My best guess was that Longboard had just showed up.  I felt like hiding in the conference room but that was unprofessional.  I left the conference room and walked back down the hall to my quad.  I saw the light was on in Longboard's office.  Only one way that happened.  Longboard was in.  I didn't want to make eye contact.  But we had to see each other eventually.  I kept the task at hand front and center.  Our front desk secretary, Romy, was just bringing the mail up from downstairs. 

              "Hey Romy, have you seen Malia?" 

              "Not yet," said Romy.

              "She should be here by now.  She's supposed to open today."

              "Try her cell," said Romy.

              "Good call."  I went back to my quad and dialed Malia on my cell. 

              "Where are you?"

              "I'm downstairs in the lobby," said Malia.

              "Why?"

              "Hank told me to come down and escort the committee members up," said Malia.  Hank was Longboard's name, Henry "Hank" Kiewei.

              "Ok.  Can you go ahead and text me when they arrive?  I'm going to set up your part first."

              "Great, thanks," said Malia before hanging up.              Malia was too much of a yes-chick for me.  She always tried to get everyone to like her.  Even though we were about the same age, my experience told me it was a failed strategy.  Maybe it was that she seemed to be making it work that made me hot under the collar.  That, and the fact that she was almost pure Hawaiian and could get that golden brown that I couldn't.  I couldn't get the perfect tan without fillers to help me cross the valley that I couldn't cross naturally.  My mom was Hawaiian and Chinese mix and my dad was Japanese and Slovenian.  So I got a lot of the pale skin from the Japanese/Slovenian side and the flat chest from the Asian blood on both sides.  Pale skin and unbent bikini tops didn't look right on any beach but especially in Hawaii.  Malia's skin was naturally golden and when she sunned it up, it got that perfect golden brown.  The most I could manage was olive skin.  I had to put on tanning oil to do real damage.  And Malia and I probably had the same cup size but Malia was
au naturel
.  Camille, on the other hand, was fake as fuck.  She was about 5'1" and a buck-ten soaking wet, yet she had these plush-looking DDs popping out from under her blouse.  She was a Cali-girl.  We kept it a bit more subtle in Hawaii but I guess she had that to learn.  She was only twenty-two years old.

              As I walked back toward the conference room I saw her.

              "Hey Camille, good job on the conference room."

              "Thanks," said Camille.  I figured it was time to put on my
Big Girl Pants
and go to Longboard's office to let him know we were all set.  The door was open so I gave it two knocks to get his attention.  He looked up.  That was it.  No verbal recognition.  No hey.

              "We're all set in the conference room."

              "Thank you," said Longboard.  He looked back down at his laptop, like that was all he needed from me.  I didn't like it.  I don't know why.  Maybe I wanted him to need something from me or I felt he was working hard to play everything off.  But he ran a big company that he had built over the course of almost twenty years.  I'm sure a first time booty call wouldn't change twenty years-worth of fight.  He wouldn't let a night of cutting loose disturb the normal flow of business.  I decided it was a mature reaction from both of us, so I got back to business.  I went back to my quad to wait for my phone to buzz.  It wasn't long but always shorter than it seemed.  It was just a text message. 
They're here
is all it said.  But my heart seemed to slide downward.  It hurt.  I had done a fair share of presentations before.  I was the assistant marketing manager in charge of investor branding.  Malia did retail branding.  But we had investment products, so I had to explain that side of the business:  products; stats; figures.