She is a General, and he is her Architect. He loves her, both as his General, and as an individual woman, has loved her since the first moment he saw her and more every day since. But love, especially love so intense, would be complicated, and it is her job to organize, not complicate. So when asked about their obvious emotional bond she speaks of their “deep mutual respect,” and any sexual tension that exists between them plays out only in his poetry (which amuses her) and his stories (of which she knows not).

The grey man, an Optimist Champion, is not complicated at all, and he loves the General as he loves all beautiful women, for the experience, and for the celebration of their shared humanity. Because the Optimist Champion is not complicated, because the Optimist Champion is a beautifully preserved former surfer dude of 50, because the General is a woman, a woman with needs which her husband, even when he is not 3,000 miles away, does not easily satisfy, because she is thrilled to be counted as a beautiful woman, she lets the Optimist Champion hug her, as he often does, from behind, kissing her gently on the top of her head.

This morning, in anticipation, she has gone on the sales call with her hair up, knowing that the Optimist Champion will hug her after, that her neck will be exposed before him, that she will feel his excited breath, that they will both imagine him kissing her. Somewhere, deep down, she also suspects that she will excite the Architect, that he will know why she has dressed this way, and that amuses her.

After the meeting the Optimist Champion does hug the General, does kiss the top of her head while thinking about kissing her neck, and all three of them are excited.

In the evening the General, the Architect and the Optimist Champion meet in the hotel’s outdoor bar. The General has changed in to jeans and a red blouse, and has let her hair back down. The three of them sit for hours, staring at the night sky, sipping their drinks, eating their food, looking warily at each other, rehashing the sales call and the state of the company in general, the Optimist Champion excusing himself twice to answer calls from his girlfriend.

Finally, the drinks drunk, the food eaten, the hour late, and the bill paid, they walk to the hotel elevator. The Architect pushes the button for the 7th floor, the Optimistic Champion for the 9th, and the General for the 15th.

As soon as the door has closed behind the Architect, the Optimist Champion puts his arms around the General from behind. She does not object, but leans back in to him. She does not question him when he is still holding her as the door opens on the 9th floor, but reaches out instead to push the close door button. She does not object when he raises her hair to expose her neck again, when his mouth touches her, when his hand reaches around to find her nipples beneath the red blouse.

When the door opens on the 15th floor the General leads the Optimist Champion to her door, and to her bed, letting him undress her, watching him eat her, feeling him eat her, bucking wildly beneath his mouth, and then pulling him up and over and in to her, her legs high around his back.

Several satisfying orgasms later, the General curls against the Optimist Champion’s hard naked body, smiling at his angelic face, resting her head on his chest, dozing off peacefully, ready for the early morning flight. While eight floors below the Architect, his brain flooded with conflicting images of his own current frustration and his past erotic encounters in hotels, especially of making out in hotel elevators, rants around his room, getting no sleep at all.