PROLOGUE

 

He got the idea from a TV soap opera. There was this dad - sorry, 'Dad' - with a family, two cars and a job he'd hated for twenty years, etc., etc., ad infinitum, boringly, etcetera. Well, Dad, feeling all hen-pecked and bushwhacked, decided it was break out or go nuts time, and so he started up in business on his own. Though it was no less fraught, at least he was worrying for himself.

Erik was impressed, for he could see himself nurturing similar urges in fifteen years or so. Not that he pictured himself with a brood of little Harmers; somehow it didn't fit the image.

Anyway, reneging on his commitment to the corporation morass, he started up on HIS own. As a computer consultant, no less, which sounded better than 'support person'.

And why not? He'd passed exams and all his employer's in-house training programmes. More importantly, he knew where to find out the things he didn't know, which is what a consultant is really paid for in the first place!

During the quiet patches he could use his word processor to knock out some articles. Surely it wouldn't be long before one of the magazines snapped him up for a technical advice column, and then he'd be coining it both ways from Sunday. Easy peasy. Money for frayed string.

Or so he thought.

Only it didn't quite work out like that.

Which is what this story is all about.

 

CHAPTER ONE

 

After saving every penny for a year, he jacks in the millstone, advertises his services and waits for the fax machine to scroll out offers.

Mistake number one is his timing, so he has an obligatory holiday waiting for the ads to come out. He doesn't carp, mind you; it's a chance to triple-check his equipment and ensure the modem is in faultless order. He even goes to a bureau and sends himself some test data, after which it is a question of either moping around the flat or putting himself about.

He chooses the latter, naturally.

Don't run away with the idea he resorts to singles bars because he can't get along with women. He can - only too well. He likes 'em very much. If anything, too much. Erik always seems to have more concern for them than they have for themselves.

Relationships are difficult for him, even casual ones. He can't help it. His mother took great pains to educate him in treating females as individuals rather than objects. In short, respecting them. So he does. He respects 'em to bits.

Unfortunately, the world turned. The worst excesses of Women's Lib passed into history and most women reverted to expecting the man to make the running. It's that uncertainty which leaves him floundering.

Ask a girl to go out with him - she agrees readily enough. Ask where she'd like to go - she doesn't mind. Ask if she has any likes or dislikes - she'll leave everything to him! So, he takes her here and there, all the while wondering if she really is enjoying herself or merely pampering his ego. For the most part he gets his leg over all right, if only as a reward for all that doting. But come the moment to ask if he can see her again and she declares it not a good idea.

Obtusely put, perhaps, but an incontrovertible "No." nonetheless. And all because he didn't come up to expectations. But then how in hell's name could he, when the silly bitch wouldn't tell him what she really wanted from a man!

 

***

 

Such a formula weekend precedes the first real day of his new life, a couple of magazines having at last reached the shelves carrying his precious advertisement. So early on Monday morning he sits at the workstation built along one wall of his living room, mulling over another pointlessly successful sexual conquest.

She'd been quite a girl. An ash-blonde beauty with a Page 3 figure, she was not just good in bed, she was a perfect fucking angel! Decisive, too, when it came to going down on him; popping his lolly between her luscious lips and sucking like there was no tomorrow. And when she rolled onto her back and lifted her hips for him to ease the diaphanous white knickers down, his heart almost stopped to find it was no optical illusion: her sweet little sex really was hairless.

The peach clung damply to his exploring fingers, its livid labia gaping irresistibly. Responding with heaps of s'il vous plait, he'd rolled on top and found his consideration for her pleasure evaporating in the urgency of the moment as his dick slid up the juicy conduit and set about lightening its load with all the finesse of a rutting stag.

Her tits were so firm it was like rolling around on a bed of balloons and the feathery brush of her belly against his told of an insatiable womb just begging to be filled. When he came, his entire being was sucked along after the spunk in a roller-coaster ride which cast him adrift in the very core of her, floundering in ecstatic helplessness. She was everywhere and everything; a security blanket he could have remained wrapped in forever.

He didn't remember turning onto his back, but when consciousness returned she was leaning over him, feeding a nipple into his mouth. The succulent little button was salty on his tongue, contrasting with the warm, smothering creaminess of the milk-white breast. Caressing her body with the intensity of a blind monk seeing the light, he was reading the Braille message writ large in twin palmfuls of bottom when, to his surprise, he felt his dick stiffening against her pubic bone.

Grasping her hips, he tried to lift her off for a second course. But she misinterpreted his intention and, swinging to her knees, crawled forward until her steaming vulva was an inch from his nose. Not one to decline an offer, he buried his face in it and lapped up the oozing cocktail of sex juice and semen. She responded willingly, arching her back and reaching behind her to stroke his throbbing pole.

Far from being a safety valve, bringing her off served actually to increase the pressure in her boiler. After jerking through an orgasm which had them both wobbling like jellies, she shuffled backwards with her eyes still closed and her chest heaving. Raising his dick to the vertical, she spat on her fingers and lubricated his glans before, after a moment's hesitation, sitting on it. It was a second or two before he realised his root was embedded in her ass!

Taking it to the hilt, her sphincter had gripped him tightly as she yo-yoed, the brush of her buttocks inciting his balls to record productivity as they struggled to keep up with demand. Talk about a market economy! As exchange rate mechanisms go, this one was a world beater!

All Erik could do was hang on to her breasts while she rode him, knees gripping his sides like a champion jockey. They'd passed the post in tandem, matching gasp for groan and shudder for quake, finally collapsing in an exhaustedly happy heap of sated flesh.

In retrospect, it had been one of his most memorable lays.

The replay has him almost unbearably hot under the boxers when the phone rings. Grateful for the distraction, he lunges, fumbles, recovers, and ends up answering in a breathy panic. "Erik Harmer Consultancy!"

"Good afternoon," says a dulcet male voice.

Glancing at the clock Erik sees it is, by thirty seconds. Which means he is dealing with either a neurotically precise mind, or a debt collector. "Good afternoon. How can I help you?" he responds cautiously.

"We wish to install a client database on two machines."

"At the same location?"

"One here in town. The other in the country."

"I see." Travelling expenses! How much per mile should he charge? Somehow, his planning has omitted that detail. "The local address would seem the place to start."

"We have the software, subject to your approval. I - er- have attempted installation, but..."

"I'll be happy to do the job for you."

"When?"

"When would you like?"

"As soon as possible."

"Let me check my schedule." Erik waits thirty seconds with a hand over the mouthpiece, then: "I can squeeze in a preliminary visit this afternoon, if that's convenient."

"Eminently suitable," purrs the man, in a tone he can't quite pin down.

Saying au revoir, Erik digs out his street map. The address is in the newly chic part of town so he heads for the shower and a change of clothes, the better to make his most important first impression to date.