Stormwatch - A Queen & A Rook

Josh monitored the boot process of the records server and when it was completely up and ready to start processing data, he let everyone know. "Ok, it looks like everything is up, let's bring up our test patient and try to create a new record," Josh typed into the chat session he had up. At the same time, he said nothing into the phone conversation on his Bluetooth headset. He couldn't have said anything into the telephone conversation if he tried. The phone conversation that was blaring in his headset was useless to him. It started out as a technical issue conference call with Andalon engineers and IT folks from the customer working out a problem when company officers on both sides joined the call and hijacked it. They dominated the call, changing the main topic of conversation from fixing the problem to assigning blame.

Josh intently watched a status screen on his left-hand monitor, his right-hand monitor was taken up by his email, the Andalon ticketing system, and Webex which is a Cisco created communications tool, it allowed him to chat via keyboard, share his computer screen, and more importantly, his customer can share their computer desktop with him. That way if there's a problem with a piece of software, he can see the problem for himself in real time from the customer's point of view.

This was a big call, one of their clients, a hospital in Rochester, had an issue creating a new medical record on the new roll-out of Andalon's hospital record system software. If this were a real issue with the software, it would mean that several dozen clients were going to face a similar problem and that could cause a hiccup in the anticipated Andalon IPO which had the Andalon Vice Presidents in a panic. The CEO, Anthony Friedman remained calm and occasionally sent a text message via Webex encouraging the guys. He was quietly monitoring the progress of the trouble call and having a background as a tech guy he understood the importance of letting the engineers be engineers.

Because this trouble call was important, the population of the call was big, almost all of Andalon's software team was on the call and had been beating their heads against the wall for hours. The hospital had their IT staff on the call and there were any number of vice presidents from both Andalon and the hospital who were now dominating the call. Most technicians became leery of saying anything on the call because the VPs insert themselves into every side of the conversations and Vice Presidents are champions of misunderstanding technical jargon. In the end the company officers were causing more problems than the technicians could handle.

Josh could understand their misunderstanding, there were so many code writers on this call, and they were answering questions on the phone and on Webex right now and Josh didn't understand a word they said. They were talking about things Josh only knows about peripherally and they were confusing the VPs that wanted straight answers in English. To separate the technicians from the executives, all the technicians were communicating on Webex, typing in their comments to a common chat, that way the executives couldn't hear what the technicians and code writers were saying. Executives tend to panic when the jargon starts flying, this arrangement saved tender nerves and overinflated egos.

When he and Terri joined the call Terri found the problem with expected data not arriving at the server, then Josh found a problem with a network switch owned by the hospital that wasn't passing the data correctly. The old software didn't care much about that switch, but the new software is very picky, very security conscious and particular of how the data arrives at the records server. Josh walked the hospital technician through verifying the switch configuration and sure enough, there was problem on one of the ports. He had them configure an unused port on the switch then had them simply move the cable from the bad port to the new port while he configure the software on the data server to accept the data from a different port. "When did I say we'd have this fixed?" he typed into the chat on Webex.

"You said three PM," replied Terri who was on the conference call also.

"Any status update Josh?" asked Brandon Mitchell on the telephone conference call. He was the Andalon Vice President in charge of Sales and Marketing that sold this software package to the hospital in the first place. He was the fellow who dominated the conference call driving the technicians away, he was also the fellow whose wife and daughter grabbed Josh's ass in front of friends at the company's Holiday party just minutes after asking Veronica to marry him in front of the entire company. Josh wasn't a fan.

"If you give me a moment or two, I'll have a complete update for you shortly sir," said Josh in his deep southern voice. He heard a snicker on the call and typed "Mute your mics" into the Webex conference. Josh doesn't mind cheerful banter on a call, but these executives are wired on far too much caffeine and maybe other substances and looking for someone to blame for this fiasco.

"I'm sorry," replied Jennifer Combs on the Webex. "But you sound like a Southwest Airlines pilot." The Webex window started to fill with laughing face emojis from every participant. Jen is an Andalon Field Technician and is seen quite often hanging out in Josh's office with her friend Terri.

The status screen showed an increase in medical records of one. "Ok, let's see if we can delete that record," Josh typed into the Webex. After a few minutes of bickering conversation by the executives in his ear the record count decreased. "Ok, looks good from this end," he typed into the Webex. He took a minute or two to update the trouble ticket then broke into the phone call. "Excuse me y'all but we have an operational system now. We had a port on a local switch passing data improperly, we switched to an unused port and ran a few tests and we're looking good."

"And it's 2:38 PM," said Brandon. "Didn't you say you'd have it up by two?"

Josh rolled his eyes, "I said three, sir." This problem was discovered on Friday night, the hospital IT and Andalon software writers had been beating on it for almost twenty hours before they called in Josh and his team at noon on Saturday. Josh decided to call this a thirty minute fix: two hours of listening to excuses and accusations and thirty minutes of actual troubleshooting and fixing.

He listened to several minutes more of conversation in his ear. All the technicians, code writers, and IT people dropped off, and there were approximately eight people left on this conference call, company officers for the hospital and Andalon and they were congratulating each other for their part in the fix. It was all down to the finger pointing now. When he said "local switch" he meant a piece of equipment owned by the hospital, and not an Andalon asset. The only thing Andalon did wrong was call the code writers for help instead of Josh and the technical team, thereby wasting nearly a day.

He sent a quick email to his boss Mark letting him know what had happened, then responded to an email from Brandon Mitchell who was demanding to know exactly what happened. Josh's response was quick, "Like I said, a bad port on a legacy switch, I fixed it. I will have the details Monday which I will share at the postmortem briefing." Then he sent the VP an invitation to the briefing which he scheduled for 1:00 PM which he saw on the calendar was when Mr. Mitchell had scheduled his lunch.

"If you don't have anything more for me, I'm going to sign off," said Josh into his headset. After getting a bit of grief for having to cow tow to The Princess he signed off with, "Ha, ha. Very funny guys. We'll see you in your daydreams." He shut down his laptop and popped it out of the docking station of the home office he shared with "The Princess."

And just then Veronica came into the room and hugged him from behind. "Was this a tough one?" she asked as she nibbled his ear. Veronica was now used to Josh being "on call" twenty-four/seven even though as executive assistant to Andalon CEO Anthony Friedman that's how she's been living her life since he hired her.

"Yeah, and it's not done yet, I still need to figure out how to prevent it from happening again, they want to do more installs next quarter. Your boss is selling this software as fast as he can make phone calls." He rubbed his eyes then patted her comforting hands. "And I have to come up with a plan before 1:00 PM on Monday."

"You'll do it, I know you will." He leaned back against her enjoying her comforting embrace and how good her encouragement felt. He gave her the same encouragement in her much more important job as executive assistant to the CEO. Veronica is a tall blond of stunning beauty, her brown eyes sparkle with delight now that she had a man who considers her his one and only. She stands five foot ten, the same height as Josh, which means that when she wears heels of any size, she ends up taller than him. Most shocking to her is that it doesn't bother him at all. She's dated business executives who demanded that she wear no heels and he would wear lifts when they were dating because of their terror of the height difference.

Josh was a dark haired, broad shouldered man from South Georgia. His accent was normally hiding in the background until he needed it. He's confident in his abilities as a technical engineer, however with women he felt like he was in deep over his head with Veronica, a beautiful, sexy, former beauty queen and a company executive. She led him downstairs where she had a nice fire crackling in the fireplace, a wonderful counterpoint to a snowy late winter day in the snow belt of Western New York. "Time to unwind," she sighed as they sat down on the couch. She picked up a glass of wine and handed Josh a long neck Bud Lite adorned with a "coozie." (a form fitting insulated wrapper around the bottle held in place with a zipper to keep the beer cold.) "It's thirty one degrees outside, why do you need a coozie?" she asked.

Josh sipped his beer. "Up here it's a summer thing, in south Georgia it's an always thing. You don't want the heat coming off of your red neck to warm up the beer."

"What's it like where you're from?" Veronica sighed as she leaned on Josh's shoulder. She's been to Georgia but just to Atlanta, Savannah, and Hilton Head, she hasn't seen anything outside of those locations, she wanted to find out about the real Georgia.

He wrapped his arm around her and sipped his beer. "Warm. It's probably about sixty five degrees right now," he said as he watched the late winter snow streak past the window.

She nudged him, "No, what's it like? What are the people like? What did you do as a kid?"

Josh shrugged, "Believe it or not, it's a lot like here in Springville. You know how laid back it is here compared to Manhattan or Philadelphia or any other high pressure asshole factory? That's what the Florida/Georgia line is like. Folks just getting along, livin' life as we love it. It's exactly like the song."

"What song?"

"The one I'm always playing at the cabin," and he began to sing:

You know I like my chicken fried

A cold beer on a Friday night

A pair of jeans that fit just right

And the radio u-up...

Veronica was insistent, "What's there to see there? What's there to do?"

Josh began counting on his fingers, "There gigging frogs in the Okefenokee, lots of fishing, river, shore, deep sea... hunting too, but we can use rifles for deer. There's softball, and college football, the Gators and the Dawgs, it's softball season right now down there, everyone's into softball, and snow cones, everyone loves snow cones." Her frown told Josh that he was hitting all the wrong attractions. He continued, "If you want to play tourist there's historic Saint Mary's, then there's Cumberland Island, there's Amelia Island..."

"You're from Amelia island?" she squealed.

"No, I'm from Georgia, near to Cumberland Island," he insisted. "Amelia Island is in..."

"I love Amelia Island! I was there for a car show once!" She slowly waived her hand like she was Carole Merrill displaying a refrigerator on The Price is Right. Veronica was so excited she was practically bouncing on the couch. "Let's go there!"

"You have a meeting this evening and I got that postmortem on Monday..."

"Thanks for reminding me," she frowned. Veronica had a meeting tonight and she made it clear that she did not want to go to it. She had been flustered about that meeting for the past few weeks and she won't talk to Josh about the details of the meeting. "Not now, let's go this spring, let's go in April! I want to see where you come from, how you grew up. We both have tons of time off saved up and I've got a million hotel points."

"Ok, ok," said Josh. Her excitement was infectious. "Tomorrow we'll set a date..."

"Last week of April," she insisted.

Josh thought about this for a moment and concluded that this was a planned ambush. He drained his beer and said, "All right, I'll start looking at hotels and making reservations while you're at your meeting tonight."

"I can't wait," she sighed then her black mood was back. "It's just..."

"What's bothering you?" he pleaded. Her mood ruined their Friday fish fry, and it's carried through to today. She's never this glum before a meeting.

"I wish I could talk about it," she sighed, "but... company stuff."

Josh understood, one of the first things he learned when their relationship took off is that "company stuff" is to be handled like Josh learned to handle classified information. There's still a lot of his past, mostly the missions he's flown, that he can't speak about. Veronica has told Josh about investor confidence and financial regulations and in the end all she has to say is "company stuff" and all conversation on the matter ends. "If there's anything I can do to cheer you up..." and he leaned over to kiss her.

Veronica smiled; the kiss gave her a thought. She gave Josh another kiss then took his empty bottle and with a smile disappeared into the kitchen. She returned carrying a fresh beer for him and wearing only her lacy black panties. "Here's a cold one for you," she sighed in her sexiest voice as she handed him the beer.

"Thank you, ma'am. 'ppreciate it, and I appreciate the service." He gave her a grin and waggled his eyebrows, however the surprise got even better.

Veronica knelt at his feet and grabbed the waist of his gym shorts. "Lift up," she encouraged. He lifted his butt, and she slid his shorts down to his ankles. She was happy to find that the shorts were all that he was wearing. His cock rose to meet her, and she leaned over and gave the head of his cock a kiss.

"Don't you have a meeting this evening?" he asked. He's not one to look a gift horse in the mouth but this change of gears was impressive, even for Veronica.

"Lover," she crooned, "don't worry about making me late for my meeting, you're not going to last that long," then she slowly swallowed his entire cock. Josh's eyes rolled up and he threw his head back as the head of his cock entered her throat and her tongue began to slither against the sensitive underside of his cock. One of her hands gently massaged his balls and the other sought out his nipple and began to gently trace circles around it. Now her lips traveled up his cock until just the head of it was in her mouth and her hand started tracing lazy strokes up and down his throbbing staff. Her beautiful eyes met his as her tongue flickered on that supersensitive spot just under the head "I thought of something that cheers me up," said Veronica and her mouth plunged down the shaft again.

Her tongue was going wild on his shaft, never stopping, always insuring that warm, wet friction was bathing his shaft and stimulating every nerve ending. Hot blond, cold beer, and a balls deep blowjob. Josh was in redneck heaven. "Oh my God darling, you're on fire! I've never..." and his words were cut off by the sensation of the head of his cock entering her throat.

She was right, there was no way that Josh was going to last very long under her oral assault. Never in his life had he felt such intense pleasure yet at the same time such loving attention to his cock. They were both moaning with the sensations of Veronica's love. Suddenly she stopped and looked up at him, her eyes were on fire and she gave him a huge smile as her hand slid up and down his wet shaft. "Don't hold back," she said. "I want it all now." She suddenly and took half of his cock into her mouth, her jaw stretched wide open, her tongue sliding up and down against the sensitive underside of his cock sending jolts of pure sexual fire through him.

The suction she exerted on his cock forced her tongue tighter against the underside of his shaft making that sweet, wet friction even sweeter. She stopped again and looked at him with a sad pout. "Why are you holding back on me honey?" the twinkle in Veronica's eye told Josh that she was taunting him. "Give it to me," she groaned, "I want every drop, baby," then she took the head of his cock into her mouth and sucked again.

She was right, he didn't last long at all. There was no way he could hold back against the most incredible blowjob he's ever had. It was just a few more moments when her perfect ministrations brough him to a shuddering, mind blanking climax. "I'm cumming," he gasped at the last moment which only caused her to increase her mouthing actions and suddenly he came. Squirt after squirt of his semen filled her mouth and she drank as fast as she could, swallowing his potent seed. Now she changed from the aggressive sex goddess to the gentle recipient of the sperm she worked so hard to harvest. He twitched and jerked as he came, and she gently nursed at his cock until the flow was done and he began to soften in her mouth.

With a groan he pulled her up on couch with him where he could pull Veronica tight to him. He loves feeling her mouth on his cock but holding her tight and feeling her 32EE breasts against his chest made this whole episode even better. He gave her a warm loving kiss, loving how her lips felt hot and swollen after that blow job. When he reluctantly ended the kiss, he looked her in the eyes and said, "Marry me. Marry me and I'll take you away from all this."

"Sorry, I'm engaged and he's the jealous type."

"You sure? I'm a cheap date," he teased as he got up and helped her to her feet.

Once standing Veronica kissed him quickly and said, "If you make those reservations, I'll run off with you for a week, ok?" and she started to get dressed. This was the saddest part of the day, the part where she put her bra on, hiding those two most perfect creations of God. Josh didn't even get to kiss them goodbye as she tucked them away in a lacy black bra that matched her panties then pulled on her slacks and skirt, completing the ensemble was her ugly flat pumps. He hated those things but they're comfortable for her, so he didn't complain. She was wearing just normal, hanging out at the house clothes, not what she would wear to work. They were her "find the Easy Off and the rubber gloves, it's time to clean the oven" clothes. And again, she looked sad.

"Remember back on Christmas Eve when we had our fireside chat?" Veronica asked.

"How could I forget?" Josh remembered when they spent the evening in the cabin in front of a warm fire talking and making love late into the night, then they curled together while the fire kept them warm and then snow fell gently outside before retiring to the bedroom. Then at first light they headed south to Erie Pennsylvania to spend Christmas Day with her dad, one of the greatest guys that Josh ever met.

"Remember how I mentioned that I have a friend that I like to... umm... shoot pool with?" she asked.