Are You Tiffani Caine? Ch. 02

"Where do you know her from?"

Sara hesitated before replying, "We were introduced by another acquaintance. I went shopping with her once and that was...well, I spent more than I meant to, but that wasn't her fault. Yesterday she called me and invited me out to a bar."

Amy arched an eyebrow. "And you said yes?"

"I know, I know," Sara sighed. "I didn't want to but I felt obligated. It's a long story and not the point. So I said yes. I figured I could have a beer or two and get home without any damage done, but..."

The ensuing pause was long enough that Amy felt compelled to ask, "But?"

"But when I got there she didn't order beers for us. She ordered...well I don't remember what it was called but it had a lot of rum in it and it was fruity. And it tasted good. And so I got a second one."

"Oh noes..."

"And I never did have a high tolerance but whatever I used to have is long gone, so I was plastered pretty good. And then she ordered us another drink...well I don't know what was in it and my memory is pretty sketchy, but it was called an AMF. That stands for -"

"I know what it stands for," Amy said hastily. "Sara, you drank an AMF?"

"No. I drank two."

"Oh gosh, no wonder you can't remember anything! You must have had a real headache this morning!"

"The worst."

"Well OK, that's like a misdemeanor, right? Drinking isn't actually a sin."

"That's not all, Amy. I...at some point she kissed me, or I kissed her. I don't remember which. But we made out hard."

Amy's shock was obvious. "Oh..."

"I know!" Sara wailed rather louder than she ought to have given that they were trying to keep it quiet. "And then I woke up in my bed this morning with a hangover, stark naked."

Amy had wide eyes. "Did you..."

"No! I was out. Rachel took me home, undressed me in case I made a mess, put me to bed, and took off. And now when I look at Isaac I feel just..."

"Guilty," Amy supplied when Sara didn't finish.

"I cheated on him with a woman! Of course I feel guilty!"

"Well...I don't think you cheated cheated. You kissed someone once. It's not the best thing you could have done but it's not the end of the world."

"It was once as far as I remember."

"One kiss is not cheating. Second, you drank a lot when you weren't used to it and you got so hammered you passed out. You didn't set out to get drunk like that, but you were having a good time with someone you like spending time with and you lost control."

Sara wasn't sure she actually liked Rachel at all, but she nodded reluctantly. The part about drinking too much and losing control was right anyway.

"Booze lowers inhibitions and it makes you horny." Sara blushed at the word but Amy continued, "And you didn't have a little to drink, you had a lot. So you ended up feeling frisky and you were having a great time with someone you click with and you did something you regret. That's OK, we've all been there." Sara remembered well the time when Amy told the Muskatrixes how she had gotten drunk at a wedding and blown one of the groomsmen a month after she'd gotten engaged to Vic; Sara said a quick, silent prayer of thanks that she hadn't gone that far with Rachel. "It's not something to be proud of," Amy continued, "but you shouldn't beat yourself up over it either. It happened, you regret it, move on. Just be careful it doesn't happen again, right?"

That wasn't a promise Sara could make to herself, because sometimes she wasn't the one deciding what happened, but... "Yeah. It's just...there was something else. I loved that kiss. That's the thing I remember most about last night, how much passion there was, how...like I was dying for that kiss and I didn't even know until I did it."

Amy nodded slowly, considered, and finally said, "I have an idea about this, but you might not want to hear it."

"Go ahead. I need all the advice I can get."

"Alright. You don't have to answer this, but...you and Isaac have never had sex. And...look, I like Isaac, you know that. He seems like a good guy and he obviously loves you. But he's never struck me as...well, he's never struck me as a passionate guy. Am I wrong?"

Very reluctantly, Sara shook her head. "No. You aren't wrong."

"But you've always seemed to me like you are. You live in self-denial because of the church and everything, but..."

"But I'm a slut?" Sara asked miserably.

"No! Isaac has always seemed to me to know who and what he is and to be perfectly content to stay there. But you've always seemed like you've been trying to convince yourself that asceticism and all the strict rules are something that you like, and I've never quite bought it. I've always thought that deep down you wanted more. More excitement, more passion, more living. That doesn't make you a slut. It doesn't even make you unusual. It just means you've been denying yourself a lot of the things that would make you happy instead of just complacent."

Sara had heard a lot of surprising things lately, but this, coming from one of her dearest friends in the world, was the most shocking of all - so shocking, in fact, that she could do no more than stand with her mouth slightly open and her eyes wide while she tried to digest it. "I...don't know..."

"Why are you friends with me?"

"Ummm..."

"I mean, why are you still friends with me after I quit the church? When people get born again they cut a lot of ties, right? Like, are you still friends with anyone from before you joined the church?"

"No," Sara said, not quite seeing where this was headed. "I dropped them all when I was saved."

"Right, and the Muskatrixes became friends because we were all in the same church and we just clicked. But you were friends with other people too - remember Will Kellogg?"

Sara nodded. Will had been a member of the church when Sara had first joined and they'd hung out a lot - Sara had even thought there might be something romantic developing between the two of them.

"When Will quit the church and said he was an atheist, you stopped seeing him and cut him off completely. That's what a lot of people from the church do to friends who stop believing. But like six months later Emma did exactly the same thing and you stuck with her."

"I...I guess I was just better friends with her than with Will. I'm better friends with all of you."

"OK, that's probably true, but you've always liked hearing her crazy stories ever since."

"That's not true! Most of the time I'm like...appalled and scandalized."

"Scandalized, sure. But I've watched your face when she tells about some wild thing she's done like whitewater kayaking or BASE jumping - you're jealous as heck. When she tells you your religion is phony you don't get angry, you have polite and interesting conversations with her. You were even fascinated when she talked about that orgy she did."

"So you're saying I want to be Emma? Because I don't."

"No. I'm saying you want to be Sara but you aren't letting yourself. I'm not even talking about the sex stuff. Maybe you want to be the one climbing 300-foot cliffs or parasailing in the Sea of Cortez."

"I guess...maybe...I'd like to have some of those experiences..."

"It's not like those things are sinful even to the most zealous of people at the church. Why don't you do them?"

"Well...I don't think Isaac would want to."

"Neither do I. And that's a problem."

Sara bit her lip. She expected this line of talk from Emma, but Amy had never given her any inkling that she felt this way about Isaac. It was a lot to take in and she wasn't in the mood, so she simply changed the topic to Amy's work and Amy went along without complaint. The dishes were finished, dried, and put away before Sara returned to what troubled her. "So...you don't think I'm gay?"

Amy laughed loudly enough to be heard in the living room and said, "No. You might be curious, like a lot of people, but I think you like guys a lot."

"So...I don't need to worry?"

"No. If you keep thinking about girls then it's something you need to examine, but you don't need to worry. You are who you are. You just need to be true to who you are inside."

Sara found that considerably less reassuring than she would have a couple weeks before, but she just nodded. She had a lot of praying to do.

The ladies made it out to the living room for the last hour or so of the dinner party, but the boys kept talking mostly to each other so Sara and Amy talked quietly by themselves. It was fun and interesting and all that, but Sara kept sneaking peeks at Isaac, and every time she did her mood wobbled. He was sweet and kind and handsome and he adored her just like she adored him, but...

Finally the two couples bid their goodbyes to each other and she and Isaac were away, heading home. Isaac told her all about what he and Vic had discussed while the men and women were in separate rooms and then asked what she and Amy had been talking about for so long. Her answer was a breezy, "Oh, you know, girl stuff."

Isaac's resulting pause was just exactly long enough to let her know that he thought she was holding something back. Sara was an awful liar, especially to him. Then again he had learned one of the most important lessons a man can learn: when a woman says she had talked about girl stuff, it was usually best not to pry too deeply. There were some things man was not meant to know.

Arriving at her place, he placed upon her lips a sweet, gentle, and almost asexual kiss. She wanted more - much more - but given what had happened last time she had pushed it she didn't dare do more. Good nights were said and I love yous exchanged and she went up to her apartment feeling strangely empty.

Thursday, April 8

A warm breeze blew all night so that by the time Sara got up most of the snow that had fallen two days before was already a memory. There was the spring smell of ready earth that she loved because it meant that warm sunshine and summer rains were right around the corner. Her morning working with Josh was tense, mostly because he was at his most smugly intolerable - he had obviously talked to Ken and was silently gloating, but he said nothing to her. Apparently he wanted to let his silence instill unease within her, and she was unwilling to reveal the extent to which it worked.

Lunch was another Muskatrixes affair. As usual the table talk was on the lighter side, with the heaviest moment coming as Emma revealed she had dumped her geriatric nurse girlfriend; little surprise was expressed by the other three women. It was just like many another such lunches the four women had shared -

Except it wasn't. Emma and Amy kept shooting curious glances at Sara, which was especially awkward because each knew something about Sara that the other one didn't and neither suspected that the other knew anything unusual at all, while Kait was left out entirely. Sara was surprised at how difficult and stressful this whole situation was when dealing with her three dearest friends - she had never held secrets from them before (except for one) and she hated doing it now. Still, the idea of revealing everything to all three - or at least everything she was willing to share with anyone - seemed so much more stressful that she didn't dare. Someday soon, she promised herself, but not now. Not yet.

She saw Isaac again that night when he took her out to a quick dinner and then to a movie. They saw the latest MCU flick; Isaac much preferred serious dramas and even art movies, but Sara loved popcorn entertainment and it was her turn to pick. She clung to his arm through the whole thing, and she wasn't even aware of how much she was pressing her breast into his bicep - but she was very much conscious of the little stabs of guilt and panic that fluttered her being when she became particularly aware of her fiance's presence next to her.

She held his hand on the ride back to her place. The pangs of conscience were still there, but there was something else: being so close to him for so long had her pulse going and her red silk panties almost soaked through. Part of her, and not a small part, wanted to drag him upstairs and, most sinfully, into her bed. She knew it couldn't happen (even though plenty of engaged couples do it, even ones who go to our church, she thought sourly). She knew she could never get Isaac to do that because his morals were too strong and he demanded that hers be just as unyielding. But after recent events she needed something, and she needed it from Isaac. And that was why, when they pulled to a stop in front of her building and he leaned in for their good night peck, she whispered, "Tongue? Please? Kiss me like you mean it."

There was a moment of surprise on his face - maybe even a flash of resentment, though it was too dark to tell - and then he smiled, leaned in, and put his lips on hers. She responded with eagerness, and a moment later his tongue was in her mouth. She felt a thrill when it met hers and she melted into his strong body, letting him control pace, aggression, and duration, and hoping for something that transcended.

And it was...a good kiss. A very good kiss, even, especially when compared to his usual restraint. She enjoyed it very much from start to finish and was disappointed when it ended...

But it wasn't as good as the kiss she'd gotten from Rachel.

He looked at her in the dimness of the car and asked, "Good enough?" with the quiet confidence of a man who knew he'd just given her something wonderful. She smiled and said it was, and she thanked him, and then they said goodnight and that they loved each other, and she spent the walk up to her apartment wondering if the drunken kiss she'd shared with another woman in public had really been as amazing as she half-recalled.

Friday, April 9

"Sara, Sara, Sara. Obviously this is unacceptable behavior." Ken sat at the conference table in his office, leaning back in his office chair in an affectation of friendly ease. "You must have known that."

Natalie glanced at Sara, but Sara was ready to speak on her own behalf in a calm, cooperative tone. "Could you please explain to me exactly how it was unacceptable, sir?"

"You loudly called Josh here incompetent," Ken said with a gently patronizing smile, one mimicked by Josh as he sat at Ken's right side. "Obviously that was going to reach my desk and cause a huge stink when it did. What were you thinking?"

"I never called him incompetent or anything that implied incompetence, sir. He asked if I thought he was incompetent and I insisted I did not. He came to me insisting that the numbers I had given him that morning were incorrect when they were actually right."

"I took Sara's work down to Statistics and had Jaylene Maxwell look them over," Natalie supplied smoothly. "She verified Sara's numbers and found that Josh's claim of Sara making mistakes was incorrect and unfounded."

Ken shot a glance at Josh, who was gaping like a fish, and then looked again at Sara. "Regardless of that, we all have the responsibility of treating our coworkers with respect. Josh has reported to me that you insisted loudly and in no uncertain terms that he was not capable of understanding his own job, and he also said you used very disrespectful and even obscene language."

Sara's eyes widened - of everyone who worked for Danforth Industries, she was the least likely to use bad language. But before she could reply, Natalie interrupted. "If that's the case, I think we'd better involve HR in this. To speed things along, I did some preliminary investigations already. Several people in the cluster overheard the exchange in question. None of them heard Sara use disrespectful or obscene language. However, most of them did hear Josh loudly call Sara the B word - loudly enough, in fact, that two of them who were on voice with their clients had to apologize for Josh's unprofessionalism. As soon as I get back to my desk I can forward the document I prepared to you and HR, and I can call Deb Kramer and request an investigation of this matter immediately."

Ken's cheerful expression swiftly changed to one of slit-eyed anger, directed for a few seconds at Natalie, and then for much longer at Josh. Josh paled and kept his eyes on the table, and seemed to be trying to shrink into the cushions of his chair. Sara fought the urge to giggle. After a long, uncomfortable period, Ken turned back to the two women and said, "I don't think that will be necessary. This was all obviously just a misunderstanding. I think Sara and Josh both need to be careful to be more respectful to each other - we're all on the same team, after all - but I don't think we need to take this any further officially. Do you?"

Natalie shook her head. "No, I don't think HR involvement is necessary. Do you, Josh?" Josh's head shake was barely perceptible. "Good. Will there be anything else?"

There was not, and Natalie and Sara got up to leave. Josh tried to escape too, but Ken called him back for a "private discussion." Sara was actually grinning as she exited Ken's office. "I can't believe that went so well!"

Natalie smirked. "It's usually easy to come out of these things in good shape if you can prove you're 100% right and the other side is 100% wrong."

As they headed back to Natalie's office, Sara mused, "Ken didn't prepare for this meeting at all, did he?"

"No. He believed what Josh told him. He went onto the attack automatically and it blew up in his face, which is going to leave him very angry."

Sara slid into a chair at Natalie's desk as Natalie closed her office door behind them. "That means more trouble for me down the road, doesn't it?"

"Much, much more," Natalie nodded. "Things are going to get even worse for you around here and there's only so much I can deflect. Ken's been humiliated and he wants my head, and since he won't be able to get it he'll be coming after yours. I hope you have your resume in shape."

Sara was quiet for a moment before asking, "Ken and Josh are pretty much the same guy, aren't they?"

"Mmmm, Ken is a little sharper, but basically yes, that's right. Ken had someone with similar attitudes promoting his career when he was coming up and now he's doing the same for Josh. In ten years Josh will be Junior VP no matter how much he screws up between now and then, unless he causes a scandal so big that Ken can't cover it up."

After a long moment, Sara said, "Just a few weeks ago I thought I had a career here for as long as I wanted it. Did I do something wrong?"

"Not that I noticed. You just ran into an alliance of assholes. I'm sorry, but that's how it is too often in business. You came up on the short end of it this time."

That didn't make Sara feel better. "I hope I can rely on you for a good recommendation when the time comes?"

"It will be a very good recommendation," Natalie nodded. "Unless you kill Josh or Ken before then, in which case it will be glowing."

A joke about murder wasn't funny, which made Sara feel even more wretched when she realized she had smiled at the joke. She would need to pray hard for forgiveness about that.

Once she got back to her desk she was involved in researching software suites for agribusinesses until lunch. She tried to find someone to eat with but on Fridays almost everyone ate lunch at their desks so they could escape early so she ended up getting a hot beef sandwich at a nearby downscale joint and returning to her desk to finish out the week. The week was exactly 72 minutes from being finished out when her cell rang - Rachel's number. As sick to her stomach as seeing that number come up on her display made her, Sara was mostly disgusted at herself for the little thrill she felt when she realized who it was. She took a couple deep breaths to calm herself and then answered.