Cliffhanger

Barry Harper had worked at WGC for nine months, having graduated college the previous spring with his diploma in computer network administration.

A more worldly classmate had convinced Barry to do a European backpacking expedition as a graduation celebration. The experience of sharing hotel rooms, hostels, and occasionally barns with Emilio and the conquest of the moment- including more than once the proverbial farmer's daughter-had soured Barry on the charms of the Old World, and driven him even further into his shell. Not once had the farmer's daughter had a sister for Barry. Well, one had a sister, but Emilio had ended up with both of them, leaving Barry huddled in the rough straw trying to resist stroking his throbbing cock as first one, then the other, beautiful blonde had kissed his swarthy pal. Once the kissing proceeded down Emilio's chest, Barry had rolled over, all the better to resist watching, to avoid the awful emptiness of not enjoying.

But Barry could not help but here the older bigger sister – Helga- say to her sibling, "Ilsa...you get first licks on this one, since you've never had one this large before."

As Ilsa cooed, "Oh, it IS big, much bigger than Pappa's...." Slurping sounds followed. Barry had been unable to resist further. He had snaked his rigid phallus out of his pants, the cool night air of the barn no deterrent. The occasional brush of straw against tender skin only heightened Barry's arousal.

"That's it, Helga, suck my balls while Ilsa licks me like a Popsicle," Emilio had cooed, causing the girls to peel in laughter, temporarily interrupting their work.

"Popsicle...that's funny..." said Ilsa, " since it was our Pappa who caught me watching the barn cats fuck, and asked me if he could teach me how not to get pregnant, but still please the guests. That's how I learned how to swallow."

"And who taught Helga?" asked Emilio.

"Well, she's older," Ilsa explained, "so some of the village boys got to her first, but after I told Pappa what I saw her doing for Hans Kluge on his eighteen birthday, Pappa and I showed her how to really blow out der birthday candle."

All three laughed heartily, so much so that Barry wondered whether or not he could plausibly still pretend to be asleep.

"And ever since then, Ilsa and I have shared," Helga said as she recovered her composure.

"Ya, that's why we like the oral sex better, because it's easier to share that way than when I have to get my share out of Helga's pussy."

"But I thought the oral was instead of sex," Emilio managed to sputter, his words punctuated by pauses as two tongues bathed his shaft.

More girlish giggling. "Well, Helga cheats. A lot."

"Ilsa only cheats a little. So she's still tight like a virgin. I think Pappa wants to fuck her, and I think she will, and let him think he is the first."

This banter, was interrupted by the sound effects associated with slurping and sucking, and squeals which Barry imagined must be Emilio reaching down to pull on the sisters' nipples. Barry came quickly but quietly, his spunk spilling into the vast blanket of straw. What seemed like an eternity later, he heard Emilio sigh in satisfaction.

"No fair swallowing it all, Ilsa," he heard Helga whisper; "I want more than just the scum off of your tongue. I want a mouthful too."

"Take it all in your mouth," Emilio had instructed, "and then stick your tongue out so that I can see it. Then Helga, you lick every drop off of Ilsa."

Barry listened a while longer, pretending to be asleep, and eventually, he was sleeping. When he woke up in the morning, a grinning Emilio had fresh warm bread and coffee "courtesy of the farmer's daughters", who were no where to be seen.

Emilio continued to fuck his way through Europe, though no other night had been as exasperating for Barry. Still, when Barry got home, he had dumped his packsack in the back of his closet at his parent's house, and had not thought about it since.

So, Barry was not happy when he had seen the notices posted at World Global Chemicals promoting the Earth Day celebration. When his supervisor had informed him that the nature hike was not really voluntary, Barry had grudgingly gone to retrieve his packsack.

Earth Day morning, as he slung his pack onto his back for the first time since that frustrating journey, Barry tried to concentrate on the fresh air and singing birds rather than sour memories. Having found petrified unopened condoms tucked optimistically in the bottom of the pack had not helped.

The group from WGC was lead by the founder of the company, Rex Beaumont. Rex was not your typical nerdy business type. He tried too hard in fact to get people to compare him to Richard Branson, the adventurer founder of the Virgin companies. Of course, airlines, records and resorts were a lot sexier than industrial solvents. The annual WCG Celebrates Green event was really just a PR stunt to balance that. Beaumont paid a struggling Hollywood filmmaker enough money to finance several indie films in return for a crew to shoot a complimentary documentary linking Rex and WCG to various environmental initiatives. In every case, Rex has donated only modestly to the green project, and almost randomly, with no real understanding of the impact of the projects, or whether they related to his company's harmful products. Rex was really only interested in getting on television, and hoped that a massive hike would get PBS interested in running the subsidized documentary. He had coerced over 2,000 employees into participating. The smartest, or most reluctant, were rewarded with matching days off.

Barry of course had not been that clever. He showed up on what should have been a day of rest, shivering in the early morning spring air. The event began where it would end, with a rally at the local stadium. Rex was on stage, bragging about the great tailgate party they would throw after the hike "featuring only organic hot dogs."

It was a beautiful day for a nature appreciation hike, and as Barry listened to the speeches, he tried to cheer up.

More than a few hikers, Barry had noticed, had already started the tailgating before entering the stadium, fortifying themselves from flasks or wineskins. This gave them a pleasant glow. Barry also noted that the cold made most of the women's nipples poke rigidly against their T-shirts, as Rex insisted everyone display the giveaway apparel for the cameras.

"What does any of this have to do with the environment?" a woman standing beside Barry muttered. He turned to see a beautiful raven haired woman that he did not recognize. She was short slim, with small perky breasts. Barry instantly registered that she was braless beneath the shirt, her nipples accentuating the Grand Canyon and Africa on the Dadaist globe logo.

"He's so full of shit," she continued, since Barry was too busy drooling slack jawed to respond.

"Are you talking to me?" he finally stammered, still not quite believing that such an angel existed, let alone was prepared to speak to a wretch like him. What a stupid thing to say, he immediately realized.

Except instead of cutting him with a sharp rebuke and walking away, she blushed. If anything, this made her seems more beautiful to Barry and he felt the blood draining out of his brain and flowing to his groin. He still was thinking enough however to be conscious of the strange reaction by which embarrassment seemed to make her breasts swell firmer, her nipples hardening and seeming, in Barry's overheated imagination, to be trying to tear through the thin T-shirt fabric.

"This is all just such an act of theatre to pretend he's interested in the environment while his plants spew more poison into our lakes and rivers."

"Not to mention the worsening world wide drought," Barry replied, recalling a headline from a magazine.

"What's that got to do with World Global Chemicals?" she replied, looking puzzled by Barry's strained effort at conversation. Before he could recover, she wheeled and walked away. Despite his distress at once again dropping the conversational ball, Barry could not help noticing that her legs were long for her height, perfectly formed tanned stems disappearing into short shorts which stretched taut over an ass that would serve a dancer proud. His cock throbbed hard inside his shorts. He flushed with his own embarrassment as he realized that anyone looking would see his arousal plainly. Then he decided that no one would be looking at him anyway, and turned his attention back to the speeches.

Beaumont was blessedly brief, leaving Barry contemplating the woman's remarks. "I guess he hasn't got much to say about the environment after all," he muttered, perhaps unaware that he said it aloud.

The documentary crew however noticed, one of their handheld video units having been assigned to roam the crowd picking up just this sort of dissent. Beaumont would likely refuse to pay the fee, and maybe sue over copyright, but the film makers secretly planned their own expose of WGC's hypocrisy. Barry was now about to be a star. To them, the fact this might leave Barry unemployed was irrelevant. They knew that everyone was prepared to do almost anything for fifteen seconds of fame.

Next up after Rex was Lola Lotsa, a faded Hollywood glamour gal of the previous decade, now reduced to cameo roles and bad reality shows. Lola was available for hire to dress up almost any corporate event, and still, through the miracle of plastic surgery, filled out her T-shirt firmly. Barry, and every other guy in the crowd, played little attention to what Lola had to say, mostly focussing on how he chest jiggled as she giggled at canned scripted lines like "I'm glad to be here with all my friends at WGC, because the animals are our friends."

"Freaking tree hugger," Barry heard a rugged looking production foreman standing nearby mumble.

"Don't you mean you'd freaking like tie her to a tree and fuck her?" teased the big man's fat winger.

"At least I've got a dick big enough to reach past my belly," the first idiot retorted, seemingly agreeing with his chum's anti female sentiments.

Despite his earlier arousal, and Lola's abundant attributes, Barry felt ashamed for the male gender. His swollen member relaxed.

"She's probably just fucking Rex as part of the package deal anyhow," the buddy suggested. Both Neanderthals convulsed with belly jiggling laughter, drowning out the end of Lola's brief remarks.

A band of old long hairs who appeared to be herbal druggies from the sixties struck up "Blowing in the Wind". After one chorus, Rex strode back to center stage and said "I'm pleased to announce that Lola will be our walk leader this morning. And which of us would not want to follow Lola's behind?"

He paused professionally to appreciate the laughter and then said, "I'm sorry, I meant 'follow behind Lola'."

Even from the middle of the crowd, Barry could see Rex's insincerity displayed in the form of a dramatic winking leer, and that Lola's professional mask slipped just for a moment to prove that even masses of plastic surgery did not prevent a disgusted frown when one was called for.

She recovered her composure quickly, however, and was grinning as stupidly as she had on the sit com which had made her almost famous – Playboy had finished the job- and then bounded down the stairs, her bountiful assets bouncing bravely. Still playing for laughs, Rex grabbed at her ass as he followed too closely behind. She turned and swatted his hands. Rex, again overacting, leering comically, turned to the film's director and said "when you cut that from the finished film, save a copy for my private reel."

Barry noticed that the director also looked disgusted, and grinned, thinking that perhaps Rex might get his comeuppance. As he fell in with the pack of hikers, Barry started contemplating his own future with WGC. To this point, he had felt disconnected from the company's larger issues. As a computer techie, he had never considered himself responsible for the pollutants spilling out of the facilities which his systems operated. Although the sexist behaviour was in some ways distinct from Rex's phoney environmentalism, Barry was smart enough to recognize that both reflected twentieth century mindsets that were inappropriate in the new world.

"If I wasn't such a total loser, I'd quit and find a real job," Barry observed, "but I can't even get a date, so how could I expect anyone to like me enough to hire me? I'm stuck with dead end jobs where no one needs to see how ugly I am or hear how stupid I sound."

As Barry trudged past the film crew, his backpack suddenly feeling as if it was loaded with bricks, the director turned to the person standing next to him, who was a secret agent provocateur for the film crew. "That guy might be a perfect center piece to show that not all modern tech types are isolated from the environment."

"But he's so nerdy," the woman replied.

The director laughed. "He just needs to get laid, and then he could be a star."

"How can you say that?"

"Because I only became a director for the casting couch."

"But you are so cool; I can't believe you ever were short of women."

"First I had to discover that being a film maker made me so cool that I didn't need to beg for sex. Women throw themselves at me, and I'm not rich like Steven Spielberg. It took a while for me to figure out that nothing about me had really changed, except my confidence. Give that guy a dose of confidence and he could be perfect."

"If you say so. But you better get going; your paycheque and his Playmate are vanishing around the corner. If you don't catch up, how will you know whether they climb over the hill or grab a quick copter ride?"

"I'd love to film that," the Spielberg wannabe replied, dashing off with his crew. In the process, he almost bowled Barry right over, the concept of showing the documentary through the eyes of an average WGC employee forgotten in the passion for scandal.

The walk itself was well organized, WGC being a land of engineers and accountants. Each group of thirty to forty hikers was led by an experienced guide, with another volunteer assigned to act as "sweeper", keeping the straggles tight to the group. Several paths with various degrees of difficulty wound around or over the rugged terrain, all ending on the other side of the hill, where lunch would be served, tailgate party style, before the hikers would be bussed back to their vehicles, or to the plant. Along the way, the guides would educate the hikers. Several prizes were being awarded for a scavenger hunt, a quiz during lunch based on flora and fauna observed, and a simple contest as to who spotted the most endangered species, and environmental degradations, from a list handed out as the group started out. Barry noticed that the dark haired woman was no where to be seen, but the foul mouthed rednecks were loudly within his vicinity.

The guide for Barry's group was an enthusiastic Australian, the sweeper a tall buxom redhead. Her tits filled out her T-shirt much better than the earlier brunette had, but with equal braless exuberance. Perhaps to emphasize that point, or those points, she had tied the shirt above her navel, not only making it form fitting but displaying well tanned well toned abs, which disappeared into shorts so tiny they could have substituted for a string bikini, if they were not khaki twill.

Barry wondered whether he out to stray behind to see just how tender her care might be.

"We'll do the Over the Peak Challenge route," the guide announced. "In addition to the exercise, it has a great view from the top, more species to spot and will get us all into a draw for an all expenses paid white-water rafting weekend."

This drew groans and muttering from the crowd, and several people peeled away in search of easier routes, but Barry remained. To his surprise, so did the rednecks.

Within a few minutes, Barr's group was enclosed in dense brush, separated from the rest of the hikers. The group was strung out due to the narrow trail, clumping together only in the odd clearing, where the guide would expound on. Barry overheard them chatting.

"I'd like to go rafting with that cunt," one said. "She'd look really fine all wet. And maybe I'd half drown so she'd hafta give me mouth to mouth."

"The sweeper? Yeah, she's sweet. But I think she's Rex's personal assistant. Very personal if you know what I mean. I think he just put her with the common folk so that she's not in Lola's way."

"Or in his way with Lola."

Just then, a helicopter zipped overhead. One of the rednecks chuckled. "I bet that's our Rex getting a mile high hummer right now."

"I wonder if she titfucks first?"

"You'll never find out."

Both guys found each other so funny that they convulsed with more belly wobbling laughter.

Disgusted, Barry dropped back to avoid overhearing more of their conversation. The group stretched out more as the trail climbed more steeply and the guide paused less often. Although the beer bellied pair were huffing for breath, Barry purposely trailed even further back. Eventually, they were barely in sight ahead of him, and only the sweeper was behind him.

In order to make his distancing appear natural, Barry made a point of stopping every few hundred yards to admire a plant, or to simply turn and take in the exquisite view over the valley. Though Barry had seldom ventured far from his computer in recent years, it struck him how much greener and more lush the land was the further away it was from the WGC complex.

The sweeper came up to Barry several times. Although she was polite, after two or three attempts to urge Barry to go faster, she was clearly exasperated with his slow pace. Perhaps her suggestion that Barry ought to have set out with the 'newbie road side flatland march' would have been more convincing if Barry had been paying attention to her words, rather than staring at how her sweat stained T-Shirt was melted to her braless breasts. With each word, she breathed and her nipples rose beneath Barry's gaze.

"Look, I really think you should go back, but I'll get in trouble letting you go alone. I just don't want to be held back," she said. Her sigh lifted her tits higher, as if they might burst out of the fabric.

"You'll really slow us down as we reach the peak," she continued, her eyes now registering the fact that she knew where Barry was staring. She sighed again, her hair glistening in the bright sunshine as she shook her head. "Look, our guide is my boyfriend. But he just found out that I've been giving Rex blow jobs, so I'm afraid if he gets to the rendezvous before me, he might do something awful."

"Like confront Rex?"

She laughed, entertaining Barry's eyes with how her nipples bounced, barely contained in her shirt, seemingly rotating in opposite directions. 'Is that even possible?' Barry wondered, making a mental note to do field studies, but admitting to himself instantly that he lacked study subjects, so would just have to Google the question.

"Not likely. Despite the Crocodile Dundee look, Gareth is a big sissy. I'm more afraid that he'll go and revenge fuck Sally Green from HR. That slut was all over him at the Christmas Party. I wouldn't really mind that much, but I'd hate him fucking her without me, plus she's such a slut, I bet he'd bring home some exotic STD that drugs won't cure."

That last comment sent a shiver through Barry's spine, reminding him of one of the many reasons he was still a virgin.

"Look," he said to the Amazon, "the trail back is easy. I could just go back by myself. Then you can keep pace."

The Amazon mused for about a millisecond, then glanced ahead, where her boyfriend was just rounding a bend, making some scantily dressed blonde from sales giggle as he made plant names sound sexual.

"Okay," she said, already brushing past Barry, "just don't get lost or hurt, or I might get fired."