Quaranteam: Remote Work Ch. 02

The Quaranteam Universe is the creation of CorruptingPower, used with permission. In addition, I'd like to give some shout-outs to the Writer's Room. BreakTheBar, Birches, Ronan, Agathon, Ryden, and of course myself. Check them out on Literotica and Patreon!

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Chapter 2: Visual Arts

25 July 2020

The sun rose again, as it likes to do, and the light streaming into the building fell on something it never had before. Two people sharing a bed in that tiny apartment.

For Adam, opening his eyes and finding a combination of a warm weight in his arms and a soreness in his crotch was a VERY new experience. Enough so that it wasn't until she started to stir that he even realized he was awake. Bless his heart, he'd never had to do the morning-after awkwardness, and with that realization came the twin one that he'd be doing it for the foreseeable future as well.

She wiggled a bit, still coming to. "Okay, so yesterday was real."

Adam nodded, only tangentially aware that he was doing so into the back of her hair. "Yeah. Um. Hi. So, this is my bedroom. Not sure how long you're going to be here, but we can figure out a bed for you. I don't have a couch to sleep on and my air mattress broke two months ago."

She took a deep breath. "I guess proper introductions are in order. I'm Shannon, and to answer your implied question I think I like being in this one with you. You're comfy."

His brain kind of refused to register quite what she was saying for a moment. "Uh..." Smooth, man. You've got a woman in your arms the morning after for the first time in your life, saying that? Get it together! "You're welcome to the spot. I'm Adam, but my friends call me AJ. Welcome to that group, I guess?"

She laughed, softly. The sound was as pretty as the day before, sharply contrasting with her body. "Oh, you're a treat. Glad I picked you." She stood, still nude, and began to do some kind of stretching in the confined space. Her movements were smooth, practiced like she had done it a thousand times (which she had), but her face showed that the movements were causing her pain.

It was obvious to Adam as he sat up on the bed, even having never seen it before. "What are those stretches? I know you're not doing them for fun."

She grimaced a bit. "Yeah, they're the opposite of fun, but it's way worse for the rest of the day if I don't. I'm sure you noticed the scars?"

He nodded. "Didn't seem polite to pry, but yeah."

"Nice of you, but I know they're the first thing everyone sees. Got all of them around the same time, but they'll seize up if I don't do this." As she began to move more deeply into them, Adam noticed there were even more than he'd previously thought... and given how many he'd seen, that was saying something. More ran down her spine, branching down into her legs and hips, standing out stark white against her brown skin. If all of those seized up at the same time, she'd likely be paralyzed, or nearly there. "I make my living doing freelance art online, and a lot of these are on my arms and hands. Gotta get to it if I want to eat."

"What the heck do you do if you 'seize up?' Sounds like it isn't something recoverable on your own, is there anything I can do to help with it?."

She made a face. "I take anywhere from six hours to two days to slowly stretch back out until I can move enough to feed myself again. Not exactly a good time even by my standards. Having you to both give me food and push my stretches will help a ton."

"Good to know." AJ shook his head. "I still have lots of questions, but I'm guessing you knew that might be the case. Might take your mind off things. I guess, first off, what the heck did you mean by being glad you picked me?"

"So your profile on Oracle was a lot more honest than the random guys on Tinder used to be, got it. It mentioned you like asking questions to hear the answers. Definitely good to know!" He was quite sure he hadn't actually said that at any point, but given how much seemingly went into the profile he wasn't surprised. Despite her pain, and the obvious pulling of skin and muscle against scar tissue, she was smiling. "Your choice. I can either give it to you directly, or go to the land of context. That might take a bit."

His grin matched hers. "Tell you what. I'll toss together some breakfast, and you can give me the long version while we eat. Coffee?"

"Yes, please. I take mine like a bimbo. Blonde and sweet as you can get it."

"I got you." Adam stumbled around a bit more than usual to get a pair of boxers on and one of the worn-out shirts he normally used for pajamas. They just hadn't seemed important the previous night. This time, though, he took to the old adage of "don't cook bacon naked." Bit more literal than usual, but it worked. So did finally getting around to dropping his still-rotting trash off his fire escape, directly into the perpetually-open dumpster three floors below him. Open windows and some effort he found himself having energy for, and he could almost feel human again. Eggs, bacon, and coffee helped. Especially with one detail he served up with the Bimbo Coffee.

"How did you manage to make this pink?"

"I had raspberry creamer still sealed, seemed appropriate. Enjoy!" There was a comfortable silence in the room as the two dug in. As it turned out, both had been a bit too distracted the previous evening to worry about dinner.

Some few minutes later, a significantly happier Shannon took the last sips of coffee from her mug. "Okay, so. You have questions. I don't have a lot of answers, but I can tell you what I got told. Fair?"

AJ nodded. "Guess that's all I can ask for. So, you picked me?"

Shannon nodded around a bite of bacon. "Yeah, so when I took the whole survey thing? I did mine at the vaccination site in Lacey, then a dozen profiles for nearby guys Uncle Sam said I had sufficient compatibility with popped up. People who had space on their Team. Yours was... I wanna say second or third highest I got shown? Picked you mostly on gut feel, not gonna lie, but the feel of you rearranging my guts confirmed things a bit. The system said 93%. That's an A in my book, seems to be working out so far."

He took a deep breath after that news, wondering at his ability to actually do so after so long. Let it out slowly, looking thoughtful. "Guess so. Glad you decided to swipe right on me."

Shannon's undignified snort was fortunate in that she didn't have any coffee in her mouth. That would have been messy. "Today's going to be move in and setup, I'm thinking?"

Adam nodded back. "If you're sleeping in my bed, least I can do is make sure the house is done right. My only rule? The bedroom has to stay clean. It's where I sit in front of a camera for my job, so gotta be professional. And, well, I have a hard time sleeping if it's messy."

"Oh, definitely no problem there. Anything else you want to know?"

"Loads, but start with one thing. 'Space on their Team.' What exactly do you mean by THAT one?"

She blushed again, though not nearly so much as last time. "Um. Yeah, that would be important. Couple of things go into that. You know how the virus kills way more guys than girls?" He nodded, she continued. "There's another thing about the serum's protection. One woman sharing it is only about 40% effective. You said you were alright with polygamy, so more are probably coming. Someone was talking about going to be some tech millionaire's sixth, but the guy who gave me my injection said the priority was a minimum of three to all surviving and willing males."

"THREE?" AJ's jaw hung open incredulously. How would he even fit two more people in this tiny apartment? It was anyone's guess. Not even counting the thought of that many women sharing his bed.

"Yep. Supposed to bring it up to 80% or so." She nonchalantly looked around. "Changing the topic. Guessing I should set up my computer in the living room? Need to get status updates out today, things got a bit delayed. Speaking of... I wanna test something."

Without hesitation or delay, she got under the table and immediately gave his boxers a yank. The intent was obvious, Adam was hard almost as soon as his dick was uncovered, and she gave it an exploratory lick. "Darn it, guess the initial high-gear orgasm was just for the first time. Docs said something about healing, though, so here goes nothing..." She took him into her mouth, pushing forward, until she ALMOST managed to get his entire length. She suddenly choked hard, pulling backwards and breathing a moment as she got into her seat, tears of frustration and pain in her eyes. "No joy, I guess. Part of all this scarring is up in my throat from inhalation burns, gives me a really nasty gag reflex. I was kind of hoping... well. Never mind that. I'll settle for you railing me every which way other than that."

Adam, understandably, was more than slightly off kilter from THAT interaction. "Inhalation burns? Okay, Shannon, let's get this out of the way so that I'm not dancing around it and you don't have to worry anymore. I won't judge. What the heck happened to you?"

Shannon was silent. Staring into her mug, as if she'd suddenly find more coffee there to delay this conversation with. "... you know that time when you just hit your teens, puberty is really kicking in hard, you feel on top of the world, and you're invincible? Well, I-5 had different ideas for me. About... oh, eight years ago now. I was fourteen, just starting to get noticed by boys, and my mom got into the middle position of a five-car pileup. I obviously lived, so did Mom, but I was... well, I think 'shattered' is the best word I've got. More than one of my docs said they didn't know how I lived, broke more than half the bones in my body, burns, smoke inhalation, and the delayed response just trying to dig down to where I was."

"Shannon, that's awful!"

"Yeah, no kidding. Wasn't even the last of it, either, around the time I could walk my doctors realized my boobs had kept growing way past where my family history said they'd stop. That thing I was getting noticed for? Macromastia. Forget back problems, with my skeleton in the state it was those things were getting ready to twist my spine into a pretzel." Her right hand came to her chest, lightly tracing where the U of scar tissue was under her shirt. "J cups sound amazing until you gotta carry them, especially with the knowledge that they weren't even slowing down by then."

Adam could certainly understand that... though, truth be told, visualizing her with J cups (or bigger!) had him back at half-hard under the table. Not that he was about to say that, of course. "I see. Might sound lame, but I'm personally glad you pulled through and you're doing better."

"Eloquent, huh? Well, I got you all hard, so how about we go fix that on your bed, then I can get my stuff set up?"

She didn't need to ask twice. As quickly as they could get to the bedroom, she was offering her firm and now-nude rear to him, and he happily accepted the invitation. What he did probably wasn't vigorous enough to quite be called "railing," but he gave it his best shot as he pounded into her from behind. It was looking like she was enjoying it, but when he shot his load into her womb once again he was caught off-guard by how intensely powerful her sudden orgasm was, gripping him tightly and drawing as much of his cum out of him as possible. With a sigh, they kind of flopped onto the bed with each other, basking in the afterglow.

"I think I can get to like mornings more if this is how you plan for them to go, Shannon. Anything else in the routine I should know about?"

She giggled a bit. "Oh this? This is new. Shower and then applying my medicine would be next." Said shower was turned ALL the way to as hot as it could go, resulting in Adam's pale skin showing bright red for a while but Shannon's body moving much more easily. It was a trade-off Adam felt would need to be talked about at some point in the future. The next part turned out to be more fun, though.

"This stuff is kind of a silicone gel for my skin. Anywhere that's scarred or shiny? Needs to be worked into it."

"Guessing that showering first is so that this has a chance to soak in?"

"And so that I have a chance to stretch stuff out first, yep. Really happy you're here, too, there's a lot on my back I can't reach without help. Mind starting there?"

Adam's eyebrow raised. "It sounds like you're asking me for a massage."

Shannon grinned broadly. "That would be because I am. Come on, you already told me you don't have anything to do until this afternoon, so don't be afraid to put your back into it!"

Putting his back into it might not have been all that much at the moment, but he certainly gave it his best. The container opened easily enough, which made sense if it was literally a silicone-based gel like it said on the outside. By the time he looked back up, Shannon was already arranged face down on his bed and wiggling into place. On the one hand, Adam was tiring out fast. On the other?

She is literally asking me to put my hands all over her. I can't be mad about this one, now can I?

He set to work for a bit, doing his best to really lean into it like she asked. Definitely still had to take breaks, but after a while another oddity came up. "Shannon, is it normal for the scars to, I dunno, flake a bit?"

"Normal? Nah, but it's a good sign. If you're done with my back I can roll over to explain a bit. Just as long as you keep on doing what you're doing, it definitely feels a lot better than me trying to do it myself."

Adam was happy to oblige, working the gel into her upper chest, into the scarring around her minimally-padded breasts. "Need this in the shiny spots too, or just the actual white scars?"

She was busy blissing out to the feel of his hands, so it took him repeating the question before she got it. "Oh, uh, technically both? Just less on the parts that actually have melanin. That's the flaking, stuff healing and progressing under the scar so the nasty stuff peels off. Haven't had it happen in a while."

"Well, it's happening a lot today! Just got the last of you done, by the way, hope you enjoyed it." Secretly, he was hoping she had... but not enough to beg for more just yet. His hands and arms were TIRED.

"Must be your magic hands, then. Okay, sad panda, guess I'm done being spoiled for now. If you got sandwich ingredients I'll make them while you set your own stuff up?"

"Got distracted before I could put the grocery order last night, for some reason. The peanut butter and jelly should still be good."

"Sounds perfect to me!" Once Shannon got her clothes back on, she practically skipped out to the kitchen as Adam did his best to clean the bedroom back up. Didn't take long before he had a sandwich in hand (the open loaf was an unfortunate science experiment, but the one that was still closed was thankfully only a bit stale), a quick kiss from Shannon, and he got to his first scheduled time to do his normal remote tutoring. Granted, it was a Saturday, and during the summer at that, but some students just needed more help. Athena's parents had a strong sense of her needing to do well, and they were taking the lockdowns just as seriously as her teacher. The session went encouragingly well, it was evident that she had been studying hard even in his absence.

The next one... didn't show. High schoolers over summer break might not have the greatest reputation for their work ethic, but Mike was the kind of student who was usually good about letting him know if he'd miss one. Probably just confusion, he was one of the ones who hadn't responded to apology emails while Adam himself was in the hospital. Ah, well, gave him a chance to check on his new roommate. Partner? Teammate? The terminology was going to drive him batty, given that he didn't seem quite ready to admit that "girlfriend" might be appropriate.

AJ stood and stretched, back popping, and began to walk over to the door to the living room. That's when he heard it. Shannon's voice, sure, but not quite what he was expecting to hear. In a chipper voice, she seemed to be speaking to an audience. "Hey everyone! It's your Purple Paw Princess, checking back in! Thanks for joining in the surprise stream, gotta catch back up on my commissions so I'm not doing any specials today. Had a medical thing happen, I was out of action for a little bit. Thank you for the subscription, Madame Meerkat! To answer your question, I'm now on one of those Teams you might be hearing about. Ladies, trust me when I say, read the freaking pamphlet. It tells you everything, and they aren't making stuff up!"

She had one of his rinky dink unfolding coffee tables opened up with a laptop sitting on it. On the laptop was a webcam, which was pointed at her. Another folding table was open in front of the chair she sat in, and on THAT was a drawing tablet, which she was focusing hard on. As she drew on it, she kept up a running commentary for her audience, wherever they might be, and on the screen he could see a purple cat with white stripes and a small gold crown that seemed to move the way she did. That was a new one.

There was time to do a few extra bits of housekeeping. Place a grocery order for delivery... and as badly as he wanted to put a rush on it Adam knew that such things were not in the cards. Credit cards, specifically. Especially ordering enough for two. Continuing to take out the trash. Filling another bag entirely. He was getting winded again by the time he pulled it out, and paused on his fire escape before tossing it down.

"Hey! You're back! Good to see you Mr. Jeffries!" The voice came from the ground level, the kind of semi-deep intonation usually reserved for the words "yo," "lift," and "gains." It was a familiar one, but not exactly what Adam was expecting to hear. It belonged to a man with short blonde hair, a sparkling white grin, and the same general body shape as a Dorito.

"Good to see you too, Chad. Couldn't resist chest day?" It took some effort to yell down to the ground level, but not too bad. At least he got to take some deep breaths.

"It's Saturday, bro. Leg day today, now that I got over that cold. I was shaking on warm-up weight last week!"

That sounded a LOT like it was more than a cold, but trying to explain that to a man who worshiped at the altar of Protein would be futile. "Just stay safe, alright? Spent two weeks in the hospital recovering from one of those."

"I'll bring up some protein bars, then! Gotta get your weight back. See ya later!" He jogged off without any further comment, leaving Adam to catch his breath and shake his head. He got back to the living room still chuckling.

Shannon looked up from her tablet quizzically. "I'm muted, who was that?"

"Oh, Chad? He's harmless. Trust fund jock and Paladin of the Order of the Barbell. You'll find his picture in the dictionary next to the word 'bro.'"

There wasn't another word for it. Shannon cackled so hard she actually hit the floor, gasping for breath. "Oh, that's RARE. How the heck do you come up with these? You normally need six guys in a writer's room to get quips like that!"

"I was rather proud of it, yes. Anyway, Chad's got five brain cells, three dedicated to lifting heavy things and only using one of the other two at any given time, but he's good people..."

There was a loud BANG BANG BANG on the apartment's front door. An angry man's voice yelled from the other side. "Open up, Adam! I know you're in there!"

"... unlike Gus." AJ pulled out his phone and fiddled with something on it as he walked over to the door, very obviously looking to make sure the lock and deadbolt were secure and putting a small speaker on the ground facing the closed door. "Good afternoon, Gus. I won't be opening this door, hope you understand."