Our Love Saga

I want to start by advising everyone that this truly is a "saga", defined as a long, involved story, account, or series of incidents.

The events in this story all happened as described, although they did not involve one couple as they do here. The story is long, contains a lot of detail and dialog, and smidgens of humor. Sexual activities are inferred, but left up to the readers' imaginations for the most part.

I had not intended to submit an entry into the Valentine's Day contest, but since I finished this one before the deadline, I figured, "Why not?"

Your votes will likely answer that question. Enjoy.

Chapter One

As the saying goes, "Once a cheater, always a cheater."

I never gave that axiom much credence where Samantha and I were concerned, because, although we were both married to other people, neither of us had cheated on our spouses when we first got involved with each other.

My wife at the time that I met Samantha was a stay at home mom for our two kids. Linda had dropped out of high school and never held any sort of job. Her parents were both alcoholics, so to get her out of a dysfunctional home environment I found a small studio apartment and she moved in with me. I worked two and sometimes three jobs while attending college classes, saving money for tuition and our future.

In retrospect, I don't think I ever loved Linda so much as I felt a need to take care of her. Being responsible for someone other than myself grounded me at a time in my life when I needed to be more focused to make something of my life. Linda was fun to be with and devoted to me at the time, but I came to also question whether she had ever actually been in love with me or just loved being taken care of.

For the first five years of our marriage, she suffered from agoraphobia, or "fear of the marketplace", and she would only leave the house if I went with her. Our son, Bryce, was born ten months after we had been married. He wasn't planned, but we had no regrets. Four and a half years later, our daughter was born. She had been planned, almost down to the date of her delivery. I had a vasectomy six months after Paige's birth.

Linda didn't have a driver's license and her fear of leaving the house alone meant that I had to take off from work or classes to come home to take her or the kids to things like doctor appointments.

Shortly after our tenth anniversary, I was recruited to join a well-known Japanese company, which among other things, manufactured components for many of the largest computer and system integration companies around the world. They wanted me to join their team of engineers responsible for supporting major customer accounts. I was responsible for a large geographic area that included Hawaii. While I had an office in Southern California, I was seldom in it due to the extensive amount of travel that my position required.

The pay and benefits were exceptional and my need to travel two to three times each month forced Linda to come out of her shell more and more so that the kid's schooling and social lives didn't suffer. I was even able to talk her into taking the few classes required for her to receive her GED. I bought her a car as motivation for her to get her driver's license and it worked.

Within just a couple of years, I had been promoted to become the National Manager of Engineering Support, essentially replacing my boss when he moved up in the organization. My travels increased and frequently included international destinations such as Japan, Europe, and various South American countries. Linda had developed an inner ear disorder called Meniere's syndrome, which prevented her from flying, so we never had the opportunity to share any of these destinations, and she categorically refused to let the kids fly without her.

~~~

The limited time that I spent in my Southern California office was typically devoted to administrative tasks and meetings with other department managers. Since I traveled more than anyone else in this company location, my fellow managers would typically come to my office for meetings to make things more convenient during my short stints there.

Needing to review floorplans in one manager's office related to some proposed changes to the building that might affect my office space, I agreed to go to his office to meet with him there. His office door was closed, but I saw who I assumed was his administrative assistant standing on a chair, trying to hang a banner above a doorway congratulating someone for some work-related accomplishment.

I only saw her from the rear, but what a rear it was. She was wearing a black pencil skirt that complimented her slender figure as it went halfway down her calves, and what appeared to be an off-white colored silk blouse. It was a professional outfit, complete with nude pantyhose or stockings and conservative two-inch high heels.

Before I could cough, clear my throat, or do anything else to get her attention, the heel of one of her shoes caught along the piping of the chair's cushion, and she lost her balance. I made the two quick strides necessary for me to reach her just as she fell back into my arms.

She gasped as she fell, and gasped again as she fell into me. I gently positioned her so that she could stand safely on the floor and quickly stepped back to allow her to turn around. When she did, I expected to see an expression of embarrassment, but saw one of annoyance instead.

"Thanks, but your help wasn't really necessary," she said.

Her voice reminded me of laughter even though her expression was so serious. There was no discernable accent, but it reminded me of the lilt often heard from an Irish lass. It was melodic and I instantly wanted to hear more of it. And what was that perfume she was wearing? It was intoxicating.

"I just reacted on instinct," I replied. "I couldn't let you just fall to the floor."

"Oh, I wouldn't have fallen. I've caught myself three times already today."

She appeared to be in her late twenties with medium brunette hair that rested in curls on her shoulders. Her sparkling, dark blue eyes had a natural gleam that reflected any light present, even when she wasn't smiling. Her glory was her face. Her features are so perfect that she didn't have to enhance them with makeup, yet what make-up she did wear was understated and as professional as the rest of her appearance. She had a striking shape with elegant curves as if she was the blueprint for how a woman was supposed to be put together.

I extended my hand and said, "In that case, let me help you climb back onto the chair. I'll just stand by until you're done if you don't mind."

She took my hand and used her other to lift her skirt enough to bend a leg so that she could place that foot onto the chair cushion. She raised her skirt high enough up her thigh that I could establish that she was wearing pantyhose and not stockings.

Without saying anything, she once again returned her focus to the banner. Instinct took over again as I saw her waver backward slightly and my right hand found itself on the small of her back, just above the waistband of her skirt. She glanced down at me but didn't complain or comment before finishing her task.

"You can help me down now if you want."

I extended my hand to her, which she took in one of hers as she placed her other hand on my shoulder and stepped down from the chair.

"Thanks again," she said. "Are you here to see Mr. Allen or just to rescue clumsy women?"

"I'm here to see Joe. He's expecting me."

She moved the chair away from the doorway and opened the door, "Go on in," she said.

It only took about five minutes to review the floorplans with Joe Allen. When I left his office, his administrative assistant wasn't at her desk. I read the nameplate on her desk just to be able to know who she was. "Samantha Soghomonyan". My first thought was that she did not appear to be of Armenian descent but rather reminded me of someone from France. This led me to my second thought, that if that was her married name, she must really be in love with her husband to take a last name like that rather than keeping her maiden name.

~~~

Being in the office so infrequently, I only ran into Samantha two or three times over the next several months, usually while we were both getting something in the break room. We said little to each other beyond polite, professional greetings, and I doubted that she even knew what I did with the company other than travel a lot.

When I worked out of the office, I was generally one of the first people to arrive. It not only put me ahead of the morning rush hour traffic, but it also allowed me to get a jump on communications with my team on the east coast, who were three hours ahead of our California locations. I usually got a pot of coffee started in the break room so that I would have some to drink before everyone else arrived.

It was Monday, and I had just returned to the office from the fall Comdex show in Las Vegas, which was always held during the second week of November. Travel during the rest of the month would be only for an emergency, so it was one of the few times each year when I was assured that I would be home with my family for more than a week.

While the first pot of coffee was brewing that morning, I stood looking out the breakroom window towards the parking lot. Dawn had brightened the sky and it looked like it was going to be another picture-perfect Southern California day. I noticed a person on a bike pulling into the parking lot at an incredible speed and heading back towards the warehouse along the side of the building, but couldn't tell much about them from the fleeting glance I was able to get before they rapidly disappeared.

When the coffee maker stopped brewing, I poured myself a cup and headed out of the breakroom. At the doorway, I almost collided with Samantha as she came rushing in with a bicycle helmet in one hand and an insulated lunch cooler in the other. I avoided spilling any of my coffee, but I don't know how I did it.

"Whoa!" I said. "What's the hurry?"

"Geez, you scared me half to death," Samantha said. "I didn't know anyone else was here in the offices yet."

"It's not even seven o'clock yet," I said. "Why are you here so early?"

Samantha stepped around me and headed for the refrigerator to store her lunch. As she walked past, she said, "I need time to shower and get ready for work after riding my bike in. I try to get in and out of the shower before the warehouse guys get in at eight."

Now, I could understand that. The company encouraged employees to ride their bikes to work, carpool, or to use public transit to demonstrate our commitment to the environment. The only employee showers in the building were in the men's and women's restrooms out in the warehouse, and since there were no female employees currently working in the warehouse, any of the ladies from the office area would be alone in the warehouse while showering.

Seeing Samantha in her bike shorts and sports bra left little to the imagination where her beautiful athletic body was concerned and I'm sure that the guys in the warehouse would be hard-pressed not to make some comments about her if they saw her before her shower. Getting just the slightest glance of Samantha as she was currently dressed would turn any man into a satyr. I was a married man and an executive with the company and I was hard-pressed not to say anything.

"Well, I won't hold you up," I said. "Nice seeing you again."

"You too. What is your name, by the way? I know that you have an office upstairs and that you're not in it very often, but I think it would be nice to be able to address you by your name when we do run into each other."

I reached into my shirt pocket and pulled out one of my business cards and presented it to her, then said, "I'm Allen Janson. Everyone calls me 'AJ'."

"Thanks, AJ," she said with a smile as she slipped my business card into the elastic waist of her shorts and quickly left the break room. Images of someone slipping dollar bills into the G-string of a stripper came to mind, but I quickly banished them.

Two days later, I had an evening conference call with Japan scheduled, so I was working late in the office waiting for the time to join the call. It was a little after five in the afternoon when I decided to take a bathroom break so that I wouldn't be tempted during the call. The restrooms were located across the hall from the breakroom where I saw Samantha retrieving her insulated lunch cooler from the refrigerator. She was dressed once more in her bike riding outfit and she smiled when she saw me.

"Hi, AJ, you working late?"

"I'm hanging around for a conference call with Japan in a half hour or so. You heading home?"

"Yep. I'm not in any hurry though. If you've got a few minutes, I would like to ask you a favor."

"Sure, come on up to my office whenever you want."

"Okay, let me just strap this to my bike and I'll be right up."

Even though I am an executive with the company, I didn't have an administrative assistant of my own. I preferred to handle all my travel arrangements myself, and the majority of my communications were either related to contracts that the legal department paralegals would take care of, or personnel-related that I could have Human Resources handle if necessary. The few times when I needed to get a purchase order generated or other administrative task performed, I could usually use one of the other managers' assistants to handle it for me. I think this surprised Samantha when she arrived outside my office and found no one there.

"Is now still good?" she asked as she stuck her head in.

"Of course. Come in and have a seat. What can I do for you?"

Samantha took a seat across my desk from me and said, "You work with the division of the company that has all the computer stuff, right?"

"My team supports the division that sells all the computer components and peripherals, yes."

Samantha smiled to acknowledge that this is what she had meant and said, "My husband has a computer that he uses mostly for homeowner association business. He's the president of our homeowners' association. Anyway, he has been complaining that the printer he uses produces awful looking letters. Something about dots, but that's all I know..."

"He must use a dot matrix printer," I said. "The characters are formed by dots, and he's right, they would look awful for any kind of business correspondence. They're okay for spreadsheets, labels, and the like, plus they're relatively inexpensive, which is probably why most people have them in their homes."

"We make printers better than that, don't we?" Samantha asked.

Our marketing department was a complete waste of human genome. I had been trying to convince upper management for years that if we couldn't even market our products to our own employees so that they knew all that we manufactured, how could we expect to effectively market them to our prospective customers? Employees knew what their own little silo of the company was responsible for and nothing more. Managers knew slightly more from interactions between different departments, but even most of them had serious knowledge gaps about everything our company manufactured.

I addressed Samantha's question, "Yes, and no. We manufacture the 'engine' used in most laser printers, but we don't manufacture the printers themselves, at least not here in North America. The parent company manufactures and markets laser printers for the Japanese domestic market, but doesn't export them."

I recognized the confusion on her face since I had seen it hundreds of times. I tried to clarify things for her, "Are you familiar with any of the Chrysler minivans?

Samantha nodded and said, "It seems like every fifth vehicle on the road is one of them, so yeah."

"Do you know who makes the engine inside all of those minivans?" I asked.

"I would assume that Chrysler makes them," she answered.

"Then you would be wrong. The engines are manufactured by Mitsubishi Motors in Japan. Without the OEM, or original equipment manufacturer engines, the vehicles wouldn't function. We make the OEM laser printer engine that most of the computer manufacturers use in their laser printers, but we don't make the entire printer for them. Mitsubishi has a team that works with Chrysler to make certain that when they install an engine into one of their minivans that the motor mounts match up. My team does essentially the same thing with the companies that buy our OEM laser printer engines."

"Well, that shoots that idea," Samantha said, obviously disheartened.

"What idea is that?" I asked.

"I wanted to get my husband a better printer for a Christmas present..."

"And you thought that I could help you buy one of ours?"

"Pretty much, yeah."

I nodded and considered what Samantha was trying to accomplish. Laser printers at the time were typically priced beyond the reach of the average consumer. Many had proprietary interfaces and only operated under specific operating systems with dedicated print drivers. She would do better to get her husband a daisy wheel printer, but that would limit his ability to print any graphics.

I nodded and said, "Let me do some checking around and see what I might be able to come up with for you. How much were you looking to spend?"

"I could go as high as two hundred dollars," she said.

I think I did a good job of stifling a laugh, although my tongue would not be welcoming any spicy food for several days due to the bite I inflicted on it.

"I'll see what I can do. Why don't you check in with me tomorrow?"

Samantha stood and said, "Thanks, AJ."

As she turned to leave, I asked, "Samantha, do you mind if I ask how far you live from here? I mean, how long is your bike ride?"

"No, I don't mind. It's almost fifteen miles. I ride west a few blocks from here and jump onto the Santa Ana River trail. I take that to Yorba Linda Regional Park and our house is only a few blocks from there."

"I see. How do you get your clothes and stuff here? You always dress very professionally and I don't assume that you carry them on your bike."

Smiling, she said, "I bring my clothes and stuff for each week using my car on Sunday. I have a locker that barely holds five changes of clothes, but I manage."

"So it appears. Do you ride much other than to and from work?"

"Nope. I'm pretty much a sit on my butt homebody which is why I need the exercise that riding to and from work provides."

"You seem to be in pretty good condition, so it looks like you have the right routine worked out. What do you do when it rains or you can't ride your bike home for some reason?"

"The weather here is pretty stable and predictable. I generally know the night before by watching the news whether there might be issues riding to or from work, and if there is any doubt, I drive."

"What about days like today where you've stayed later than normal and it's now almost dark outside?"

Samantha glanced over my shoulder to the window and realized that it had in fact turned pretty dark. "Crap. I have lights on the bike but they work more to let others see me rather than giving me much light to see the road." She checked the time and said, "My husband could come and pick me up, but he will be at an HOA meeting until nine or so..."

"If you don't mind hanging around for about forty-five minutes, I can give you a lift home with your bike," I offered.

"I wouldn't want to take you out of your way," Samantha said. "Where do you live?"

"I live over in Cypress so I could drop you off and then I would be going against traffic if I took the Ninety-One freeway home. My family isn't expecting me home for a couple of hours, so it wouldn't be an imposition at all. I would feel better to know that you weren't riding in the dark, especially along the river trail."