Taking the Flyer

I never meant to go bad. I just hung out with the wrong people. I went to college with my friends, who all became computer science majors, took the same crappy tech support jobs with them to pay tuition, booze, and drugs, and followed them in to Microsoft, where my sociology degree somehow landed me a job as an HR recruiter, while my friends drank from the firehose of stock options, Bill Gates feeding a sea of gaping programmer rictus with dangling T-shirts and merchandise at the annual meetings as I wondered where my parents had gone wrong.

Which is how I got to be on a flight to San Francisco, first class, bored and tired, on my third beer, trying to shake up a conversation with the beautiful woman next to me. Because I didn't care anymore: normally I'd give her the polite nod, and go about my way. But this woman was a beautiful fair blonde wisp with long straight hair, dressed in what appeared to be a silk dress, slick off her shoulders to her little breasts, and I wasn't going to see her again and didn't care anyway. Nothing I'd been doing had worked in months, I was bored with work, and decided, then, that I was going to do things differently and see what it got me.

I stole her newspaper. It was the San Jose Examiner, the Silicon Valley paper of record, which she must have had to seek out at Seatac. She stared at me.

"You stole my paper," she said, turning to me. She had bright green eyes that flashed, a cute upturned nose. Her eyebrows were low and angry.

"I didn't steal it," I said. "I'm embracing it and will return it to you later with new proprietary extensions."

She sighed. "You're a Microsoft boy, aren't you?"

"A man, yes. I'm Denny, likeable black man." I offered her my hand. "What sends you to San Francisco?"

She stared at my hand. "I have a conference to go to."

I held my hand there, between seats. "Hey yeah? Me too. I'm going to the big San Jose IT Hiring Conference."

She blinked. "You damn well are not."

I turned my hand up. "I swear," I said. I put it back out to shake. She shook, her hand cold in mine. "So," I said, "you want to go to dinner, we get into town? I'm sure there's someplace to eat somewhere."

"No."

"Why not?"

"I just don't want to."

"You have a guy?"

"No, I just don't want to."

"Look, you don't know me, you're never going to see me again, just tell me why. Otherwise I'm going to bug you the rest of this flight, and I'm feeling really immature." I poked her. "Tell me." I poked her again. "Tell me."

"I don't date black men," she said at last. Across the aisle, someone looked at us.

"Mind your own damn business," I said. "Why not?"

"Never appealed to me."

"I'm actually sort of mixed, racially, if that makes you feel any better. You don't find me appealing?"

She smiled, and I reeled in shock. "A little, in a childish sort of way."

"Hey, you ever had sex in the bathroom?"

"No," she said. "I like to keep my functions separate."

"You don't ever feel the need? Don't ever want to do something crass, like walk up there with me, get in, struggle around, have some awkward, unsatisfying sex, and then come out, almost daring someone to say something?"

She chewed on this. "You've got me. But the answer to your question is no."

"What about some rubbing under the trays?" I leered, trying to work the eyebrows.

She laughed. "No."

"How about dinner, then?"

"Fine, just shut up," she said. "Stop talking."

"I'm Denny, likeable black man," I said, extending my hand. "What kind of food do you like?"

"I'm Rachel, baffled white girl," she replied, shaking again. Her hand was still cold. "I like sushi."



I bribed my way into a packed sushi bar, our luggage stashed in the trunk of my rental car (the Lincoln Town Car, choice of quality mobsters everywhere, acquired by bribing the Hertz rental clerk repeatedly), and I talked to Rachel about the challenges of picking out ideal candidates to join a massive, evil, wildly successful IT company. It turned out she knew me by reputation from two friends who'd moved south after leaving the Empire. I turned on her, asked random entertaining questions about her life hopping from belly-up or belly-uping startups in the Valley, and lo, at the end of the dinner, we went out for drinks and after drinks we were heckling some terrible comedian in some hole, and then she was kissing me in the brick alley two streets off, one hand on my crotch, rubbing, the other around my shoulders. I looked around, worried we were going to get the beatings of a lifetime, but she seemed not to care, stripping my jeans down with the fine boxer-briefs. I felt the cold night air on my sweaty erection, and looked at her to see where this had come from. She was looking down, her blonde hair draping down, her fair hand on my light brown shaft, and under the alcohol haze, I could feel her soft touch moving back and forth, dragging electricity with it.

Rachel knew how hard to touch, hard enough that I could feel she was serious, know where the hand was. It was already the best sex I'd had in months.

"You don't have to --" I started.

"Oh, shut up," she replied. "That good?"

"That's great."

She kept her head close as she went on. "We've been pretty honest with each other, Denny, so I'll be blunt -- I thought black people were supposed to be hung."

I scanned the alley again. "Oh, we are. But you just have to get us real excited. Takes a while for all the blood to get down there."

Rachel worked on my erection a little harder, a little faster, keeping it from curving up towards my belly. She looked up at me, smiling.

"Is that so?"

I nodded. She put her lips to the head of my prick and drew down softly, and I moaned. She drew off, and then back, and I ran my hands through her hair, feeling her hand on my shaft, keeping slow time with her hot, wet mouth. I could feel the quick tingling building in my back; I would not be long for this world.

There was someone to my left. He was huge, black, and built like an ice-cream cone, huge shouldered, and wore a uniform.

"The hell are you doing?" he asked, in the cop voice you get issued at academy along with baton and badge. Rachel froze, as if the cop only reacted to movement, like a raptor.

"Hang on just a second," I said, pushing my slick head past Rachel's lips gently. I shuddered and came, then shortly again, and stopped, breathing hard. I stepped back, gently stuffed my erection into my shorts and went all the way down to pull my jeans back up. Rachel stood slowly, turning away from the cop as she swallowed, making sure her hair fell across her face to keep her profile obscured.

"Nothing," I said. "I've been drinking, you see, and I was going to urinate here, in public, but I couldn't work my belt, because it's complicated, when you've been drinking, and my girlfriend Rachel here was helping me undo my pants and so I admit it, you can go ahead and cite me for urinating in public, I'm sorry I did it, but I'll pay my dues."

The cop looked at me, at Rachel. "Do you have ID, ma'am?"

Rachel fished a white card out of a pocket and handed it to him. He looked at it for only a moment and handed it back. "It's really not worth my time to write you up for public urination," he said. He cracked a smile and almost started to laugh. His smile disappeared. "Now get on out of here."

Rachel started to talk in the elevator to my expensive, bribery- upgraded hotel suite (seriously, folks, if you can't just bill these things, find the lowest-paid employee who can upgrade you and slip them twenty as an opening bid and work from there).

"I always wanted to do something like that, just really sexy and in control. I almost took you up on the plane."

"On the bathroom?" I said. "You're kidding."

"Nope," she said. "You're a real charmer, in a weird sort of adolescent sense."

Rachel took off the dress before the door had even closed, pulling it over her head. What had I started? She walked to the bed, where she flopped down on her back, eyes closed.

"Your turn," she said. "What do you want to do that's really dirty?"

I paused. "I've always wanted to have anal sex," I said. "Never have."

"Got a condom?"

I did. Rachel put it on, bantering as she went. "I used to have this boyfriend, he was into straight sex but for some reason he always wanted to come in my ass." She shrugged, done. "Ah, I don't know. People are weird."

She bent over the bed, leaning a little so she was lined up for a nice, easy entry. It didn't work -- nothing opened, I was loathe to push on past that unwilling barrier, and after some aligning and instruction, I gave up and started all over, sitting on the bed, with her on my lap, kissing her softly, touching her hair, until finally she rose a little, came in a little, and settled down into my second quality sexual experience in months. I paid all attention to her then, grazing my hands along her chest softly, circling the soft rise of her breasts, keeping one hand at the small of her back so she was well aligned for both sliding and rubbing, and slowly she responded, keeping just on the entry and near-exit, rubbing forward against my stomach as she went. She bit my neck, hard, and cried out softly as she trembled in my arms, coming again and again, squirming and grinding, and then sighed, pushed off, and laid back on the bed, naked and shining in sweat, head on pillow.

"Are you hiring?" Rachel said, her chest rising and falling. A tear ran off one eye, and she destroyed it with a backhand wipe.

"As long as there is a market undominated, yes," I said. "I don't know if I'm going to keep doing it, though."

"What? You're funny, even if you're sort of being weird on a lark, and..." she seemed to be considering saying anything. "Look, here's the scoop. I'm thin, so I get the first look, but I don't have tits - - I mean seriously, they don't sell bras my size that aren't padded, Denny -- so it's like I'm cute and not sexy. My dates have been so awkward. I've felt good tonight, even when we couldn't get something working. You're a born recruiter."

I looked at Rachel lying on the soft, fluffy, wet comforter for a long minute.

"Now sleep in the wet spot, and we'll head out tomorrow."



I showered alone in the morning. You want to know what a posh hotel this was? No washcloth in the shower: they had a luffa for my bathing needs, scratchy, organic, and painful. Part of the New Cruelty. I used a washcloth.

Rachel was making coffee as I came out.

"You want to go get breakfast?" I asked, mopping my close crop of hair with a towel. She gave me the look again. I approached the bed, tossed the

"I was just thinking that you never finished last night," she said. "I was thinking that'd be a good start."

"Beats oatmeal," I said. "But we have to get to the keynote, or we'll miss check-in and I'll have to come up with excuses about what that expense money bought."

Rachel sighed. "Well, let's meet up again later. We're not done yet." She walked to the bathroom to shower, and I dug some clothes out of my carry on.



The IT Hiring Conference is like an exhibition, except that no one really cares about the booths, or the companies. And while it's supposedly there to get us to go to seminars and training, what it's really about is sending your best HR recruiters to recruit other companies' HR people, who are there for the same reason. It's cutthroat networking with unreasonable signing bonuses.

I met a sweet young woman from India named Hema at the booth for some database company . She was a foot shorter than me and flashed a killer smile as she shook my hand.

"Denny? I heard about you from Jessie, she used to work with you. I heard you never made a bad hire." She was still smiling but it was thin, as if she didn't really believe the rumor but had a plan if it was true.

"Nope," I said, looking at her. "I don't get fooled."

"That's a valuable talent. We could use a person like you," she said. "Jessie told me I should see if you're interested in leaving."

I laughed. "I'm not fooled," I said.

Hema looked me up and down, chewing over her plan again. Their display space was short and shallow, especially compared to the space they'd rented and tented. If this had been a software expo, I would have figured that was where the post-NDA demos were.

"It's just not worth it to leave," I said. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be rude."

"Come back," she said. "I'll show you what we're working on." She ducked behind the curtain, and I followed. It was a bunch of demos, running some sort of database thing I didn't understand. I stared at it, and then looked at the woman, who was unbuttoning her shirt.

"Denny," she said. "I will have sex with you right now and all I want in return..." she dropped her shirt. She had lovely breasts, hand- sized. "... I want you to consider leaving. Seriously consider it. If you don't come work with me, okay, but while you're down here, think about a new job." She stepped out of her khaki slacks.

"Uh, okay," I stammered, stupidly.

"Take off your clothes and lie back on the table," she said. I laid back among the forms and paper on the table for applicants to fill out contact forms, negotiate signing bonuses, betray employers bankrolling their trip here. A sturdy wood foldable table, which is another thing tech money can buy. I was nervous -- what if someone interested in defecting to a database wrapper company came by, ducked behind the curtain-- but I was already hard again, unsatisfied from last night's aborted tries, and she straddled me on top, hand back, guiding me into her, and it was glorious. Hema must have been prepped, because she was slick and wet, but she was tight around me, and I could feel her clamping down as I came all the way up into her. She exhaled sharply, and as she moved up, I took a breast to mouth, catching the nipple as it slid up from my chin and biting it. The dizzy sensation from my cock spread across my skin as she came down again, tensing inside, and I gasped in pleasure. She smiled, stopping.

"No," I said. She went on downwards, the heat and the wetness filling my senses, and I closed my eyes, my back arching beneath me. I felt nothing but the hot, wet, dizziness, and it went on and on until she stopped again, wiggling, my head sliding along her soft labia.

"You still with me?"

"Yes."

"Do you remember what you're going to do?"

"I don't remember who I am," I said.

"That's good enough," Hema said, and moved her hips back down, forcing a fast entry. She kissed me hard, and we started to move together, shaking the table, and I shouted out as I came inside her, the warmth and slickness draining from my limbs to my shoulders and chest and out, leaving only dizziness and goosbumps in their wake. She came off me and I looked at her, blank, and she was standing next to the table, her thighs slick, looking at my stiff erection, still twitching with my sharp inhalations.

She took my slick erection in a hard grip and pumped once, coming off to run her palm along my aching head, then back to working it, her hand almost painful, but it was so sexy, her hand fast on my dick, lubricated by her juice and my semen, and the dizziness built quickly and I came again after only a minute, pushing semen everywhere -- some guy's resume I'd swept off, database company slick brochures -- and she slowed at last, waiting until finally there was nothing to be squeezed out.

"I think job satisfaction is a big part of anyone's life," Hema said. "I don't think you've been getting enough of that." She produced some paper towels, tore a couple for me to clean myself, wiped herself immodestly, and started to put her clothes back on. "I wish I had more time, Denny, because there's a lot more I could do for you, I think. My card's in your pants."

I stepped out of the demo. The foot traffic was oblivious, but there were people on both sides, hawking their companies' health insurance plans, giving me a serious look-see. I fled, my breath still ragged, and found a bar.

There was a woman next to me at the bar I tried to ignore. The bartender tried to ignore me.

"Hi, I'm Suzi," she said, extending a soft hand to me. She was beautiful, glowing brown eyes. She had a white T-shirt with a giant semicolon on it.

"What does your company do, develop punctuation?"

She laughed. "I don't know, really, I just work there. You're pretty cute. And you're pretty built. Do you play sports?"

"Yes, I play basketball and football, and now that Tiger Woods has blazed a trial, golf."

"Seriously."

"I play badminton. Game of finesse. No, I'm serious."

Suzi didn't seem sure if I was putting her on or not. "So anyway, you want to go skip back to your room, have some fun?"

I looked her up and down. She seemed... worn, like a year-old car with two hundred thousand miles on it. The body'll look good, sure... I knew women like that from the suburb where I grew up, beautiful girls with that same long hair, who would do anything possible on the hood of a Camaro, be insatiable sex kittens, give blowjobs daily and talk about how much they loved to do it, and then, once married, lost their libido and found fifty pounds.

"No," I said, "not with you, no."

She made a soft spitting sound with her lips and turned away. I went to find another place to drink.

Some internet company had two great booths -- they'd hired booth candy to lure men in to one, geared to money and status and guns, the other to more Oprah tastes (which didn't register on me, as intended). What did register was the models' enormous, implanted chests in company-logo cutoff shirts. I began a slow orbit.

The head recruiter picked me out of the crowd, called me by name, and tried to haggle me into a job, becoming more and more aggressive, his offers to my mind ludicrous and impossible, until he gave me a pass card and told me to head upstairs in the hotel to a room number. I started to walk away and the models were gone.

There was no way. I was a good recruiter, maybe even a great one, but was this what a three-year luck streak got you? Was luck really a marketable job skill? How much was it worth?

Apparently. The room was tiny, a double, but the models looked even better naked, their trained-into-hourglass hips, their heavy, impossibly round breasts, and they both walked towards the door as I entered. I considered asking them what this kind of service cost, but instead got down into some lotion, rubbing those sweet, fake breasts down, and then on the bed pumping my dick between their soft, warm, firm breasts as they tweaked their own nipples and moaned a little. I was spent and had the advantage of endurance, so I started to get silly -- I had them both lean over the bed next to each other and spent a couple minutes screwing one from behind and then taking the other, both of them wet and easy, until I realized it was too much trouble moving from one to the other and let it go in the one I was one, then moved back onto the bed, a tangle of limbs as I laid on one, the other feeding me a nipple, and I came weakly, withdrew sheepishly. It hurt to come out, I was tender and chafed. The models both looked at me, unsure their job was done.

"I'm sorry, that's all you get," I said. "It's been a really long day for me. But thanks, maybe I'll see you again this week."

"Maybe," one said, with well-acted sincerity. Like fake breasts, you sort of pretend you believe these things.



I retreated to my hotel room and fell asleep. Rachel woke me only an hour later, having been unable to find me on the floor. She woke me by kicking me in the temple.

"I've got this amazing idea," she said, punching me in the chest to get me up.

"Let me take a flying guess," I said. "You want to hire me, and --"

"We should run a recruiting company. Now, think if it -- if you could hire guaranteed good people, how much would you pay? Now, I'm really good, trust me, but you're impossibly good -- we can make millions!"

"Can this wait? I'm really tired out."

"No! We need to announce here, it'll be great! The race is won by the swiftest, you know the proverb."

"I don't think that's--"

"Well, screw me then, Denny, it doesn't matter what the proverb is. Let's do it."

I rolled over onto my sore, chafed dick, pillow around my head.

"Later," I said. "Let me rest first."