The Trade (8 page)

"Sure" Jay answered. He would have killed for
a date or a party or anything where there were going to be people.
The doorman would be happy to see him with something to do too. Jay
had taken to talking his ears off before and after he went out for
his daily jogs and video binges. Even the attendant at the World
Trade golf center where Jay was playing virtual Pebble Beach every
day would have been happy to hear Jay had something else to do.

"When and where?" Jay asked.

"Flannery’s. It’s four blocks uptown from the
North Tower. From about six until, oh, probably around eight for
the married guys, but I've heard these things go on until 2 or 3
for the young, single folk. Sometimes they even end up at a jazz
club in the village or at a restaurant in Little Italy until God
knows when. Anyway, I told the wife I'd be home by ten, so, I can
meet you there, and make introductions, but then you’re going to be
on your own..."

It was the first Jay had heard of Bill being
married. He didn't remember seeing a wedding ring on Bill's hand.
In the Carnegie course they had taught him to look for the wedding
ring to avoid making gaffs. Jay silently reminded himself to be
more vigilant in his observations.

"Six it is,” Jay butted in.

"Ah Bill?" Jay asked.

"Yeah?" Bill answered. There was concern in
his voice, he could feel the tone and trepidation in Jay and
worried about the question. Had Jay noticed anything?

"I'm not really much of a drinker, so does
this place have snacks and lite beer and stuff?"

Bill relaxed. "Sure, sure. Probably a pretty
good idea to take it easy tonight anyway Jay. First impressions can
mean a lot. And most of these people are probably going to end up
working for you sooner rather than later."

"Got it,” Jay said.

"Right,” Bill said. "So I'll see you later
okay?"

"Good.”

"Oh yeah. How did you like your surprise
today?"

"Surprise?" Jay asked.

"Oh shit. Don't say it didn't..." Bill
lamented.

"Don't say what?" Jay demanded. His mind was
racing, first a party now a surprise.

"Well… you were supposed to get a delivery
today,” Bill said. "It should have gotten there by now. Did you go
out and maybe they left it at the doorman's station?"

"I'll check,” Jay said.

"Okay. Well. See you tonight right?"

"Right.” Jay hung up the phone, grabbed for
his keys and headed out the door and down to the elevator.

"Come on, come on,” he urged the elevator. It
seemed like the elevator would never arrive. He pressed the down
button again and again, knowing full well that it would have no
effect. Finally the elevator arrived and he rode down. All the way
he was trying to figure out what his surprise could be.

"Bicycle? Baseball tickets? Hooker?” His mind
raced from the childish to the obscene and back again. Arriving in
the lobby he hurried over to the doorman's station.

"Did any packages arrive for me today?" Jay
asked.

"Let me check.”

Jay waited while the middle aged, uniformed
doorman checked his book then checked in the back.

"Yessir, you have several boxes back here,”
the doorman announced, returning from the back room. "They must've
come while I was on lunch,” he apologized.

"Let me get the cart and the service
elevator,” he offered and before Jay could agree or disagree the
doorman disappeared again.

Several boxes
? Jay wondered. Jay
almost danced from foot to foot. He couldn't imagine anything that
would come in several boxes and need a cart to move. Jay bit off a
cuticle, more nervous than a frequently and recently rotten kid
wondering if Santa Claus had picked this year to pass him over. The
doorman returned.

"Want to give me a hand?" the doorman
asked.

"Sure,” Jay replied. The two men stepped
around the front desk. As soon as they were in the back, Jay saw
the large boxes, all labeled SUN. He knew now what his surprise
was. Computer equipment, and lots of it. High quality stuff. It was
the perfect gift for a boss to give to a lonely computer nerd
employee. Jay's jaw almost hung open. He'd used the SUN
workstations at school, but never thought he'd own one.

Bill had mentioned something about some
equipment as a signing bonus, but a brand new SPARC 10,
multiprocessing workstation?

"I'll have more computing power in my room
than most small businesses and colleges have,” Jay murmured.

"What?" the doorman asked. Though he looked
like he could handle himself, the sturdy front desk man was
sweating and huffing with the effort of lifting the boxes. Jay
fished around in his pockets and stealthily pulled a ten dollar
bill out. The two men pushed to cart to the service elevator. Jay
noted the key the doorman used to open the door.

"One of those might come in handy for when I
go running,” he said.

"Sorry,” the doorman answered. The two men
looked at each other for a minute. The little power that the guard
had was wielded effectively and ruthlessly. Residents always wanted
the service elevator key, he never gave it.

"I'll take it from here okay,” Jay offered,
the ten dollar bill in his outstretched hand.

"Sure,” the older man said, pocketing the
bill.

"Just leave the elevator door open on your
floor and bring the cart back when you're done.”

"No problem,” Jay said. He worked the
elevator and moved the boxes to his apartment and returned the cart
then returned to his apartment. A flurry of boxes and plastic and
Styrofoam packing material and bubble wrap flew through the air as
Jay unwrapped and organized. He immediately began to set things up.
Hours later, when he had his new machine set up and had a graphics
demonstration program running, the phone rang.

"Hey. Where the hell are you?" Bill Beck
shouted over the bar noise.

"I got the machine. It's great. I was just
setting it up,” Jay answered.

"Shoulda known. Well quit playing and get the
hell over here,” Bill ordered. Jay looked at his watch. It was
eight thirty. He'd been working with the computer for four hours.
It was like that with him. When he focused on a problem, minutes
and hours and sometimes months would slip away without his being
aware of the passing of time. There was just him and the problem
and whatever was necessary to keep him working. Food and sleep
became ritual annoyances only to be tolerated long enough to keep
the machine running. Human company became mostly unnecessary.

Jay pulled himself away from the new
computer.

"I'll be there in half an hour,” Jay
said.

As Jay was getting up, he heard his computer
make the distinctive "EMAIL ARRIVED" sound. Jay sat back down to
see who had found him on the Internet already.

"Well I'll be damned,” Jay said. He saw that
his student, C. Daniel Kinchon, from Peowee Valley Kentucky, had
found him and sent him an email message. Jay typed up a quick
'thanks, keep in touch, no time to talk now' message and sent it
back. Jay clicked off the computer before he could get distracted
again.

“
I didn’t see what was on
his screen. Did you?”

“
No. Once we know he’s at
the bar, let’s have a look. We’re supposed to see what’s on his
screen on our screen.”

Chapter

"Jay, over here,” Bill Beck called out as he
waved to Jay Calloway. Jay worked his way through the crowded room
to where Bill was seated at the head of several tables that had
been pushed together. Jay noted the large number of empty beer
pitchers and remnants of chicken wings from an entire flock of
birds.

Jay settled in after the introductions were
made all around. The talk was the regular after work bar talk.
Work, sports, tits, and ass. Jay downed a beer and mixed with the
new crowd. One of the guys, Ted Spencer, regaled the group with a
story about his latest conquest. As the clock ticked later the
married guys drifted off and the crowd thinned a bit and some of
the tables were reclaimed by other drinkers, other groups. A
threesome of well-dressed young women drinking daiquiris moved in
next to Jay and the remaining guys from work. Before he knew it,
they were all mixed in together, talking in the way and about the
things young men and women always do.

Ted Spencer paired off with a hot looking
blonde girl. Jay found himself next to a small, darkly tanned
woman. She said her name was ‘Maria’ and that she was a salesperson
in a small gallery in Soho.

"So do you live around here?" Maria
asked.

"Yeah, just down and over a few blocks,” he
answered. “In Battery Park.”

"Do you want another beer?" she asked. She
had to lean closer to him to be heard over the rowdy bar crowd. Jay
noticed the way her blouse hung open when she leaned near him. He
found his eyes roaming from her face down her low cut top to her
lacy black bra. A small shake passed through Jay's body and he felt
his dormant parts starting to recall their intended purpose. There
was a strange tightness in his throat.

"Okay, one last one then I've gotta go,” Jay
said. Maria had plans. She slid her chair right up beside his. She
laid her hand gently on his thigh, placed her lips softly against
his ear, worked her tongue very gently in his ear as she spoke in a
husky, sensual breath.

“
Buy me another drink and
I'll need a little while before I can drive home. Maybe we'll go
back to your place for some coffee.” Her hand tightened on his
thigh. Jay, the somewhat naive though hardly innocent Midwesterner
realized he might get laid. They ordered and drank
quickly.

"Hey buddy, if you need a place, I've got a
little love nest on the Upper East Side,” Ted Spencer said in a
not-so-conspiratorial whisper to Jay. “Not even my wife knows where
it is.”

Jay declined the offer.

Jay and Maria finished their drinks and left
the bar. Through the suddenly sultry evening they walked the few
blocks to Jay's place. The doorman gave Jay a sly wink as they
passed him by on their way to the elevator.

"What's all this stuff?" she asked, looking
at the piles of computer equipment and recently emptied cartons
arranged around the apartment.

"Who cares?" Jay said lasciviously. He was on
his turf now. His previously comatose but now fully aroused parts
had no current interest in computers. He was focused entirely on
the exotic woman whose scent now dominated the small room. Thus, he
didn’t notice that the computer had an additional icon on its
screen and that the chair wasn’t exactly where he’d left it.

"Yeah right,” Maria answered. She noticed the
new tone in his voice, the urgency, the need. She too instantly
forgot about the computers and walked over to Jay. She put her arms
around him, sliding her hands down to his butt and giving him a
gentle squeeze. "Do you like that?" she breathed into his ear.

"Uh huh,” Jay gasped. He hugged her tightly,
thrusting himself against her. He moved in and out, the friction
between them driving him crazy. His excitement grew. He began
walking her backwards, towards the bedroom.

"Where are we going?" she asked, teasing him.
He didn't answer. He kept walking her and kissing her and working
his hands on her back, her shoulders, her ass. They tumbled onto
the rumpled queen sized bed.

They kissed and touched and before Jay could
make his next move Maria reached down and tugged at his belt, her
hand brushing against the mound in his Dockers.

"Oh my God,” Jay moaned. His eyes rolled back
in his head and he flopped over on his back. Maria worked his belt
off and removed his shoes and tugged off his jeans and shorts. The
urgency was increasing, the clothes were coming off faster. Jay's
breath came in short gasps. He pulled off his shirt and began to
sit up, meaning to undress her but in a split second she was on top
of him.

She grabbed him in her tanned hand and began
to work her warm soft palm up and down. Jay writhed beneath her
touch. He was powerless to do anything but enjoy.

"Oh God, Oh God. I'm going to blow,” he
panted. She stopped. She looked in his eyes. She licked her deep
red lips and lowered her head down towards him. She smiled a sly
snarling smile and greedily took him in her mouth. She rocked up
and down with her lips tight around him, her hand tensing and
releasing, driving him around the bend. Jay arched his hips, the
muscles in his stomach clenched, his ass quivered. Jay uttered a
guttural, primordial scream as he released.

Maria smiled. She looked up at him and saw
him nearly ready to faint with post-come exhaustion. She slapped
his haunches, hard.

"Oh no! You're not going to sleep yet,” she
said. She raised up her diminutive form, towering over him where he
lay. She pulled off her blouse and draped it across his chest. She
removed her bra and dropped it on his face, pulling it back and
forth under his nose so he could smell her musk. Her scent on the
flimsy clothing aroused a primitive instinct in him. She worked out
of her painted on pants and hovered over him. She was open and he
could see she was ready to take him. He arched his hips, trying to
reach into that soft, warm escape of pleasure.

"Let's take a shower,” she ordered. She
stepped down off the bed and pulled him towards the small shower
stall. There was just enough room for the both of them to stand
pressed together. She turned the water on so that it was lukewarm,
stinging and refreshing. Jay was coming back to life. He pulled the
soap from the dish and started to lather her glistening naked body.
His hands worked over her breasts. The round, firm mounds yielding
to his press.

Her supple nipples leapt to attention, her
head fell back in pleasure and anticipation. Slowly, ever so
slowly, Jay moved his slithery hands down her sleek tummy. He
reached his hands around her and held her heaving chest with one
hand while he parted her tangles with his free hand. A tiny moan
escaped Maria's mouth.