Hellacious Hospitality Ch. 04

He tried his best to ignore her slip. Even if they hadn't started work yet, they were still in the building, and it probably wouldn't be ideal to get her too worked up. He decided to take it as a complement, and moved on. He gripped at his slight belly roll, to demonstrate. "Yeah, I've been... inspired, recently, to do better."

"Well... I could help? I mean, they say that getting in shape's easier, if you have a partner. I jog most mornings, so... join me sometime?" She asked nervously, tentatively, as they entered the elevator.

"...Why not?" His mind had raced through all the reasons why that might've been a bad idea, but the enthusiasm on her face got him to cave. With that, they exchanged phone numbers, to make things easier to coordinate. He filed her under a pseudonym, "Helen" just to avoid any look of impropriety, if their messages were ever overseen. Just a regional variant of her name, really, but it shouldn't rouse suspicion, being common enough. His brain was still on a bit of a mythological kick, and she probably could have launched a thousand ships with her looks, back in the day.

The elevator floor counter soon reached their level, at the top. "Showtime!" She whispered to him, out of the corner of her mouth.

As if he'd been waiting for them, Thom Crenshaw loomed the moment the doors slid open. He probably was. He was just that sort of stickler for rules and punctuality. A real old-school hard case. The exact sort of severe, hawkish man one would expect to work at a wealthy investment firm. Practically a stereotype. Somehow simultaneously frail, yet pants-wettingly intimidating. His icy gaze was trained on Benson in the immediate moment they'd stepped out of the elevator, but for some reason, he bristled more when he realized who he'd gotten out of the elevator with.

"You're late," he spewed, simple words dripping venom.

Before Benson could raise a word against him, Elena stepped between them and returned Crenshaw's glare with the best of her own that she could muster. "He's not to blame. I asked him to help me with car troubles I was having." Her calm, even tone did not match the intensity of her gaze.

"Get to work," Crenshaw growled, staring over Elena straight through to him.

"Yes, sir. Mr. Crenshaw, sir!" Benson merely sidestepped with the most blasé, non-committal shrug he could muster just to get a rise out of the gaunt scarecrow of a man. He felt a bit cockier than usual, because with Thom focused on him, he didn't see the playful smirk that Elena was wearing just for him.

"Now, now, that's enough of that. Actually, Thom, you're just the man I was looking for. How nice of you to save me the trouble of finding you. Into my office, please." Her sickly-sweet voice was laced with deadly poison, and the great buzzard of a man immediately seemed to shrink into a harmless starling as he was dragged away. Benson wasn't quite sure what she had planned, but it was probably going to get ugly. Oh, to be a fly on her office wall.

Benson sat at his desk with a sense of smug satisfaction. Interesting things were finally happening at the office.

Some of his coworkers had poked their heads up from their cubicles to check out the commotion, while others had kept their heads low. Mr. Crenshaw was not a well-liked man in general, and gawking risked his attentions coming upon them.

Muffled shouts could be heard from within her office, mostly strong baritone ones. Clearly, Elena had the upper hand in whatever argument was going down, if she didn't feel the need to raise her own voice. It wasn't long before the sound of her door bursting open violently echoed throughout the office floor, and the real show started.

"She's dead! The bitch is fucking dead! I'm going to kill her!" Crenshaw stomped down the hallway towards his own office, slamming the door so hard that the walls seemed to rattle.

Dumbstruck at the unfolding scene, Benson quickly texted Elena. "Holy shit! Wat did you do?"

"Fired his ass :p" she messaged back.

"He's screaming bloody murder. Worried?"

"Door's locked, safe. Called the cops already. go hide, if he comes 4 U. Knew he was rough. Didn't think unstable."

"Well shit, could've warned sooner."

"Srry, thngs esclated. Hadn't planned to drop him on spot. But necesary"

"Alright, getting while getings good. Msg me when safe?"

"u bet"

With Thom Crenshaw's door still closed and the sound of rustling papers within, Benson raced downstairs to the second floor, and then ducked into the restrooms. Locking himself in a stall, he pulled up his feet for good measure. And he waited.

About half an hour passed, before Elena sent him the all-clear message. "OK, people say he's gone. Police are here. You can come out now." He warily returned to his cubicle, just in case Thom was still lurking around somewhere. He made it back without incident, though. Sure enough, a handful of officers were around, taking statements.

In the end, no work got done that morning. The only thing he did of note was to take Elena's soiled scarf out of his pocket and stuff it in a drawer to take care of later.

*****

Despite how eventful and absolutely insane the morning had been, the afternoon felt almost normal. The police stuck around for awhile, conducting a full building search, because in the end, nobody had actually seen Thom leave the building. Probably a non-issue, though. While an e-mail had been put out to keep a look out for him, things had gone down a bit too quickly for lockdown procedures to go into effect, and even with that, there were too many holes in the old building's security for it to have been adequately sealed in time. The security contractors had been contacted to post extra guards for the next few days, to be safe.

As an older man, it was highly unlikely for Crenshaw to be truly dangerous. He was just irate and impassioned. The whole incident would blow over by the end of the week. Already, the office atmosphere felt lighter, less oppressive, without his looming presence hanging over everything.

Benson wanted to talk to Elena again, check if she was alright. She seemed fine from her messages, but it was easy to hide things over texts. Her door remained locked, and she simply said she'd talk to him another time, as she had a lot of things to cover in the aftermath. He would have offered to help, except all the business-level goings on were completely above him.

In the end, he just collected his bike, and rode home.

After getting a bit to eat for dinner, though, his body still buzzed with nervous energy. Completely unfocused. Just unvented adrenaline from his heightened state of mind due to the day's events. He went out for a walk to blow off that extra steam.

Somehow, he wound up back at the office. Maybe due to some lingering worries in the back of his mind. He suddenly remembered that he'd left Elena's scarf in his desk despite everything, and decided to retrieve it while he was there. Definitively proving to the night guard Kyle that he was not Thom Crenshaw (not that it was difficult, lacking about six inches in height and over forty years of age), he was allowed through without issue.

Taking the elevator up to his floor, he found it mostly dark, as expected. Just the low glow of the emergency hall lights to dust the place with a faint light. But it was enough to navigate by, so he didn't bother to find the light switch. He worked his way over to his desk, and opened the top drawer. No scarf to be found. Odd.

Thinking himself mistaken amidst all the morning's chaos, he checked all of his other drawers. Nothing. Paperwork on his desk? More nothing. It was gone. Why would someone have taken that dirty, unsanitary thing?

He wandered around the office floor, with no particular aim. Just somewhat confused. And then he spotted the light streaming from under the crack of the door to Elena's office.

"Jesus, Elena. Just because you wanted more control doesn't mean you have to shoulder all the burden," he muttered to himself. He wasn't sure if he should disturb her or not.

And then he thought he heard his name. The call was sharp and shrill, and a bit breathy, so he wasn't quite sure. It could have been any number of things that he'd heard. Leaving nothing to chance, he knocked on her door. "Elena, are you still in there? C'mon, it's late. Go home, it can wait until morning. You don't have to do everything alone." He smirked a bit at the irony that it was him giving that advice, now, after he'd only recently been warned about his own solitude.

There came no reply, but instead a sharp "squeak" noise, and the sound of something clattering on the ground.

"Elena? You alright in there? I'm coming in." To his surprise, the door swung open without resistance. She must have been out at some point, to have unlocked her door.

The light was on, but there was no sign of anybody inside. Her office space was huge. Upon entering, in the corner to his right, there was a small lounge area for entertaining VIP guests. The wall to his left had a library filled with various economic texts and financial ledgers. A massive, carved wooden desk sat at the end of the room, with back to a vast window with a pretty good view of the neighboring rooftops and the street below. It was all very iconic of the type of office where things got done. Legal or otherwise, the type of room that you could immediately tell belonged to some big shot because that's how these things always looked in the movies.

He'd been in this room once before. For his interview. They'd sat at the lounge area. Him, Elena, and one other man. He'd forgotten his name by this point, that man having retired some time ago. Otherwise, it was exactly the same as he remembered it, but with one curious absence: Elena herself.

He strode up to the large desk at the far end of the room, and found papers chaotically strewn atop it. He tried not to pry too much, as they were probably confidential. They looked like they had been thrown aside, to make space on the table for something. Then he spotted a small pool of liquid there. Or maybe she'd spilled something, and hastily scattered them to prevent them from getting wet? Then she was probably in the break room, to get some towels.

He ran a finger through the puddle. It was still slightly warm. And a bit sticky. And smelled somewhat... musky? No, it couldn't be...

Benson backed away from the desk, and immediately rushed towards the door to turn out the lights.

Minutes passed, the room in total silence. And then movement, behind the desk. A small shadow on the ground, that slinked low to the ground, and crawled out. Rising, then standing. Silhouetted against the window, pale moonlight streaming in. The figure of a woman. Almost completely naked, the pale light glinted off her light tuft of pubic hair, sparkling with a hint of moisture. Lacy bra cups embraced perfect round breasts, the edges pulled down to reveal pointed, erect nipples.

"Elena?"

She screamed at the figure shrouded in darkness at the opposite end of the room, arms reflexively crossing her body to cover her breasts and crotch. "Ohmigod! Benson!? I thought you'd left. I... I... this isn't what it looks like! No, wait, shit! This is exactly what it looks like. I can explain! Wait, no, I... well, fuck." She slumped into her high-backed leather chair, its silhouette eclipsing her own. "Oh god, I've never been so embarrassed! Please, don't turn on the light. Anything but that."

"Anything?" he asked, cheekily.

"Oh shit, I said the thing, didn't I? God, now I can't stop thinking about cheesy porn scripts, and that just makes me even more horny. Fuck! Why me? Just, whatever. What am I going to have to pay you to make you forget you ever saw me like this?"

"Nothing. My lips are sealed."

"Wait, what?"

"Look, I'm going to level with you. I think I've resented you for a while, but for reasons that were totally unfair to you. Today, I got to see a side of you that I didn't expect, and just like that, all that pent-up frustration almost instantly turned to admiration. You're a good person, who's had some bad shit happen to her. I don't want to be another albatross hanging around your neck, because god knows you have enough of those. I think I want to be someone you can trust and confide in, and I certainly can't do that by blackmailing you. I don't know what's going on with you right now, but if you need to talk, go right on ahead."

"I... I don't know what to say. It sucks hearing that you hated me for so long, but I think I get that. I kinda hate me too, at times. For you to be this bluntly honest with me... it makes me feel... happy. God, this is weird. I'm sitting here naked and horny out of my freaking mind, and I think I may have just made my first real, adult friend."

"Weirdly enough, I can relate. Don't ask. That's a story that... I'm not at liberty to divulge at the moment."

"So, I should trust you with my deep, dark secret, but you won't trust me with yours? That makes me feel disadvantaged."

"It's not like that. It's... just not up to me."

"Fair enough, I guess. So you really, truly promise that you're not going to use this moment of weakness against me?"

"Elena, trust me. I wouldn't dare. Your friendship is too valuable for me to jeopardize by being selfish."

"Not even if I showed you more?"

"Excuse me?" He choked.

"God, I don't know. This is all so insane. But I'm sitting here, shivering, naked, completely powerless against you. You promise you won't do anything, but you could be lying. You could just snap a picture with your phone, and that'd be that. You'd hold all the cards. I don't know why, but that's making me feel so. Damned. Hot."

She stood up suddenly, and purposefully kicked over her chair, so that now there was nothing to obscure her alluring shape in the glow of the window.

"I'm not sure if you could tell, but this whole time I've been sitting here, even as I worried about being compromised, I still couldn't help from touching myself. What does that say about me?"

"Elena... you don't have to do this."

"Oh, but I do. Now that it's sitting right in front of me, I've never wanted anything more in my whole life. Please. Sit here, and observe my burning humiliation. Love me or hate me, it doesn't matter either way. Consider it my punishment for wasting four years of your life."

She clambered up to sit at the edge of her desk, and spread her knees wide. She gestured for him to pull up a chair, and sit close so that he could see everything. She was possessed by her own incandescent lust. From this proximity, the smell of her raw heat was undeniable, as she furiously drove her fingers into her needy, wet cunt. She pinched and tugged on her exposed nipples hard, causing herself to pant and moan with every rough action.

Benson's eyes were adjusting to the darkness now, and they widened in shock at her boldness. Every inch of Elena's elegant, fit body was on display for him to admire. She took care of herself, which he realized was probably not for the sake of impressing anybody but herself. Her personal style was so buttoned-down and proper. Her self-esteem was lower than low, but looking good was a way that she could feel proud of herself, despite so much else in her life being out of her control.

Now, she wanted him to share in that vanity, revel in her inner self that she had shown to nobody else.

She straightened her long, toned legs in a wide "V" in the air. It wasn't a comfortable position, but that was the point. Offering herself in such a vulnerable pose was her way of relinquishing control to him, now, surrendering to base desire and embracing the self-degradation and debasement.

Her self-abuse grew stronger, and she whimpered and mewled, bucking her hips in the air against her frenzied hand. Craning her neck down, she pushed her unattended nipple into her mouth and began to suckle and bite it, which made her thrash even harder. Her teat popping free of her lips, she screamed into the air, as her moisture overflowed and poured all over the edge of the desk.

All of her body sagged, as she lay there, glistening with sweat. The rise and fall of her firm, round breasts was mesmerizing as she gulped for air.

"Elena, that was..."

"Insane?" She gasped. "I've never cum so hard before." She took several more minutes to recover. "Does this make you think less of me, that humiliation turns me on this much? Because it surprised me, too. I don't know what to think about that. I've never... never done anything like this. But it felt right, like every nerve in my body was tingling and craved more of it. I'm seriously fucked up, aren't I? Does this make me a slut?"

He shook his head. "No. That's something else I've learned very recently. I think if you label someone a 'slut' or a 'whore', that's more revealing of your own failings, coming from a place of envy more than anything. No, it's good that you're coming to terms with your own sexuality. I think that's healthy."

"That's... that's not a revelation that you just stumble upon by yourself. You're seeing someone, aren't you? That'd be just my luck."

"Yes, and no. I don't know. It's complicated."

"Is she the one you can't tell me about?"

He nodded.

"You're not being taken in by some illegal spy shit, or something, are you? Because I don't want there to be more craziness going down around here like this morning, if the feds come after you."

He chuckled. "No, it's not like that. It's more like... in that way, I guess she's not all that different from you. She wants change, but she has too many responsibilities to risk it. So she's torn. I guess that privacy helps her manage?"

"She sounds like an amazing girl. I think I'd like to meet her. We might be similar in that way, but it sounds like she's got her head screwed on way straighter. The things you've said to me today, it sounds like she's helped you through some really deep stuff."

That was an interesting thought. Caeli had put so much emphasis on how much she was counting on him, that he'd never really thought about how she'd get along with other people, other humans. Or maybe that was too much of a risk. He'd have to ask.

"So, I guess that means I'm out of luck for round two, then. That's a shame. I was thinking it'd be so simple to lure you in after whetting your appetite with a show. Isn't sticking it to your hot boss a classic male fantasy? At least, that's what I've seen in porn..."

"What!?"

"You didn't realize? About what I was using as inspiration while I played with myself?" She pushed aside some of the random detritus atop her desk, and procured a random rag that she threw at him. No, not a rag, but her dirtied scarf.

Benson cringed in disgust, but with an eyebrow cocked curiously.

"I saw it sticking out of your desk. Yeah, I know. Gross. Y'know the real fucked up part? It's because you reminded me of dad. Uh, not in that way. Just seeing you with the car this morning made me get all nostalgic, and that sorta compounded with everything else that happened today. It wasn't the blood. The smell of your sweat and motor oil are all over that thing as well, and somehow, that really got my motor running, so to speak. Jesus, hearing myself, that still sounds sorta wrong."

"Elena..."

"No, forget it. You've already got a girl, so I should cease my foolishness. I should just count my blessings that you're not going to rat me out for being such a perv."

While true that Caeli was still the object of his attention, there had never been any talk of exclusivity. And besides it was the succubus that was going around, pimping him out to all her other demi friends, so she had no leg to stand on in the matter. But more importantly, she'd told him to rely on his instincts and let his empathy lead the way. And in this moment, it told him that Elena was still hurting inside. She put on a brave face, but her self-esteem was still in shambles.