The Resort Ambassador Pt. 01

- Thursday —

"Excuse me, may I have this table?"

Emi looked up from her laptop and saw a young teen girl. She had a Nintendo Switch in one hand and a frappuccino in the other. The girl stared at Emi expectantly.

They were the only two customers in the place but the girl apparently wanted her table. It was a little bizarre, but maybe she had a good reason, Emi thought.

Emi grabbed her latte and computer and moved to the next table.

The young girl plopped down in Emi's old seat and waved to the barista in an exaggerated manner. The barista weakly waved back with a slightly pained expression.

Emi's phone chirped. 'Happy 24th! sorry for being a week late,' the text read.

'Thanks, busy now,' she replied.

Trying to refocus on what she was working on, Emi looked at her computer screen while sipping on her latte just as Evan walked in. He nodded at her and walked up to order his drink.

Strange, that was probably the first time since high school that Evan had ever greeted her without a smile.

Thinking about that, she closed her laptop and watched him as he waited for his drink to be made. No doubt it would be a half-sweet extra-hot pumpkin spice latte.

He took off his stylish artist tuque and sat down. His drink looked like a plain latte and his brown hair was comically messy. He looked up at her with raw tired eyes.

"She left me Emi."

Emi gasped and awkwardly grabbed her best friend's hand in support. She really felt bad for him but she wasn't much of a hugger. She wished there was something that she could do to help.

"I am so sorry Evan." She couldn't understand why this would happen. Evan and his girlfriend had been living together for almost two years.

"She left me because of three stupid online stories that I bookmarked," he said bitterly.

"Eh?" Emi raised her eyebrows.

"Yeah," he broke eye contact. "They were a bit erotic in nature, but really low key. Nothing hardcore."

"Oh," Emi said cautiously.

"I guess she felt that they were offensive and were a peek into how I feel about women in general. Or maybe she was just jittery about us and looking for an excuse to leave," he sighed heavily.

"Why would she take them so seriously Emi? Does reading three stories really mean I'm a bad person?"

"No, of course not," Emi said firmly.

"She packed all her stuff and left. She left a short note saying that I can go and cry on Emi's shoulder and fantasize about making HER naked."

He tried to compose himself. "They were just stories Emi! Can you help me?"

"Er, what?" Still stunned about what the note said, Emi tried to catch up.

A moment later, she responded, "Evan, you know that I don't know anything about mature relationships. I'm still living at home with my father and two brothers. I haven't had a relationship since University. Even that was a brief joke. I'm just your typical sheltered Japanese girl."

"Yeah, right. You are an elite track athlete and the lead developer at work."

"Yeah, a dorky nerd who spends too much time running. You have just made my point."

"You're not like that at all Emi. You pay attention to people and are decent to everyone. I especially like the cool tomboy vibe that you have going on due to no makeup and not acting girly. Not to mention, your fit body is sexy as hell."

Emi looked down at the floor. That was the first time that Evan had ever really said anything about what he thought of her as a girl. Since she was fourteen she had always just been just one of the guys. The comments felt awkward, but not totally unpleasant.

"Will you help me or not?"

"What can I do?" she asked looking back up into his eyes.

"Read the stories," he said seriously. "Tell me if I am a bad person and deserve to be dumped because of a few stupid fictional stories."

"Guh... you want me to read your wank-off material?"

"They are not... I mean, I had a girlfriend, remember? They are somewhat spicy but also fun to read. Everyone has their fantasies." He shifted uncomfortably and broke eye contact.

She continued to look at him with a neutral expression, trying to hide her annoyance with the request that she knew that she would have to fulfill. He was always there for her when she had family troubles and had helped her learn UX and graphic design. The bonus skills helped make her a better software developer. Plus she really did want to help, although she wished it was anything but this.

"I just want your opinion," he pleaded.

Emi sighed.

"I'll read what I can in my spare time over the next few days. Don't ask me about it at work. I'll let you know when I'm ready."

"Thank you," he said.

"Uh huh..."

"Tomorrow is Friday, a holiday, talk about perfect timing for a long weekend. Can I take the rest of today off as well? I'm not really in any condition to work today."

"Eh? You are going to leave me hanging with the Karpinski Project?"

"All the graphic assets are done. Here." He tossed her a memory stick.

"Uh, ok. I'll see you Monday then. You do know that I'm just a lead, right? If you want to take a day off, you have to ask Beth."

"I did, she said that she is a project manager, not a people manager."

"Welcome to life at a startup. I think our CEO is too cheap to hire an HR person. He's always asking me what I think about this or that resume."

"Thanks, umm..." he paused. "The three stories are also in there as well," he mumbled sheepishly as he started to leave.

"Wonderful." She held the tainted stick up and away from herself with two fingers. She made a comical face that made him laugh, but that was just to make him feel better.

An hour or so after Evan left, Emi had finished updating the graphics on the app they were working on. Finally, Emi decided to go back into the office in case the guys needed anything from her.

Back in the office, Doug was dancing in a circle with this muscular arms raised triumphantly. Mathew towering over him with his arms folded, had an annoyed look on his young face.

"Let me give you a hand Mathew," said Emi as she approached the two at the foosball table.

Mathew wasn't a bad player, but Doug could probably play professionally. Emi and Mathew teamed up on one side, with Doug on the other side. They were almost evenly matched even though it was two on one.

Emi liked to distract with comments when playing since she had learned that guys suck at doing more than one thing at a time.

"Where are we with the Karpinski stuff?" said Emi as she dropped in a ball.

After a frantic back and forth, BOOM - Doug scored. He thoughtfully rubbed his goatee and smugly snapped his score counter up one.

"The changes to the server are pretty much complete. All the hard stuff at least, the rest should be done today," said Doug as Mathew passed another ball to Emi.

Emi looked at up at Doug with a frozen open mouth, as if she suddenly remembered something, then she dropped the ball.

"What?" said Doug, some concern in his voice.

Boom Emi scored and she high fived with Mathew. You have to cheat a little if you want to beat Doug, even two on one.

"My part is done. Tell her about the poster," said Mathew as the ball banged around furiously.

"Oh man, not another bikini poster," said Emi. "We finally took down that old one!"

"Doug came back from that Anime event with a large poster of a cosplayer hottie doing Princess Leia the slave. It's a bit explicit," said Mathew.

"I'll buy you a latte if you let me put it up on the wall," said Doug.

"And I'll add your favorite brownie," said Mathew hopefully.

They both looked at Emi with exaggerated puppy-dog eyes.

"I really don't like that sexist crap on the walls guys, you know that. But since there was mention of a deluxe latte and large brownie for the next three days in a row..."

"Three days?" stuttered Mathew. Doug gestured for him to shut up.

"If Doug wins, you can put up the poster. I can't believe this place has no HR." sighed Emi.

Doug and Mathew high fived.

"However, if we win then no poster and I still get my three days of reward," proposed Emi.

Boom - Doug scored. Doug and Mathew smacked a high five.

Emi looked at her goalie with squinty eyes.

"What? He's good!" Mathew made a gesture of innocence.

After an intense battle where Emi had to do most of the work, Doug had won. Emi almost instantly regretted it. The large poster featured an Asian Princess Leia cosplayer who was on a leash and completely topless.

"No way Beth is going to go for this," said Emi.

"Meh, she has smaller tits than me - so I'll allow it," said Beth, the plus-size project manager surprised them all with her sudden appearance.

"They are bigger than mine," mumbled Emi, not happy with Beth's reasoning.

The boys were still standing in front of the new poster, grinning like idiots.

"Haha.. it reminds me of those leash stories that you gave Evan," Mathew chirped happily.

Emi looked at the guys. So that's where Evan got those stories from. It was Doug. They wouldn't be so happy if they knew what happened to Evan.

The rest of the day was uneventful. Well, other than the topless asian princess on a leash that seemed to follow Emi around with her eyes.

Ready to go home for the long weekend, Emi went to the shower room to change into her running clothes. Just before pulling on her shirt, she walked over to the sink mirrors and pulled off her sports bra.

Emi smiled to herself as she posed this way and that. She could totally give that princess a run for her money.

"Emi?" a voice echoed in the room as the door opened.

"Ahh!" Emi grunted, dropping her bra and spinning her back to the door. Hands grasped desperately over her breasts.

"Don't forget that we are bringing in Derrick on Monday. You have to get him up to speed," said Beth.

"Oh right. Thanks for reminding me Beth," said Emi, trying hard to sound normal.

"Don't worry, you totally beat that princess," Beth said without looking back as she left the room. Emi could hear her chuckling as she walked away.

Emi laughed away the embarrassment as she got dressed and laced up her running shoes. Her run home felt refreshing.

- The long weekend -

Emi woke up and looked around the living room and kitchen. The place was a terrible mess as usual. Her two adult brothers were lazy slobs. Nobody asked Emi to clean up but she couldn't help it. Ever since Mom died Emi felt a need to fill in some of that void. Motherly instinct or not, Emi was starting to get fed up.

This morning, her brothers complained about her delaying breakfast and her father asked why the place was a mess. Clearly, he was asking why she didn't clean up as usual.

Emi just gave the three a dark look and then went to her room and closed the door. She could hardly wait to get her own place. Why was she still here? She made more money than anyone in the house.

In a huff, she sat down and something poked her butt. It was the flash drive on her bed. Oh great another thing to annoy her. Might as well get this additional chore out of the way. Although to be honest she was curious about what might be in the stories. What would make Evan's girlfriend flip out? Perhaps she was about to find out something disturbing about her old friend. Actually, it was Dug who started this whole mess.

After transferring the three stories to her kindle, Emi took a look at the first story. "Everybody is sleeping" by Jessica Tang Vonharper. It was written by an asian female.

The story category was "Exhibitionist & Voyeur". It also won the "Nude Day story contest." So nudity must be his kink.

The story was well written. A girl was overwhelmed by a good-looking, overly bold, seemingly polite fellow who took advantage of her strong attraction to him. She also may have felt that she might never see him again and so was somewhat overly casual with her nudity. Then he breaks out the dog leash and brings her for a midnight walk and things escalate from there. The girl seemed consensual the whole time.

The next story had a similar premise. A girl unwittingly gets in over her head and ends up having to work nude in the office. "Confessions of a Mailgirl" by Seahawk. This story was also well written but too long for Emi to quickly read so she just read for a couple of hours until she got the gist of what it was about and then moved on to the final story.

A short story "The Reluctant Pony" by Rilawild. This one followed the similar pattern that Evan seemed to like. A girl unwittingly gets in over her head and ends up naked in public. However, this one goes much further and she gets groped and worse and becomes a tied up sex slave that acts like a pony. It progressively got darker and more explicit. The poor girl was a virgin too. Emi decided that this is probably the one that had set off Evan's girlfriend.

Emi had read enough.

— Monday —

Emi jogged to work in the heavy rain. She texted Evan and said that she was ready to talk about the stories if he came in an hour before work.

At work, she quickly peeled off her clothes and jumped into the shower and thought about the stories and what she would say to Evan. However, after that, her mind began to wander, thinking about the stories themselves.

Here she was at work and naked. All of her clothes were sitting on a bench. Anyone could casually walk in and take them. Likely it would never happen, but the risk was there.

She quickly finished and dried off and was relieved to see that her clothes were untouched. She put on her plain white panties, bra, stretchy pants, and a t-shirt. Then she took her bag containing her wet stuff in it and went into the office and sat down at her desk. Evan was at his desk too, right beside her. She put her bag into the bottom of her drawer and checked the middle drawer for her spare clothes. She knew they were there, but for some reason, she felt relief again when she saw they were in fact still there.

"Hi Evan," she said finally.

He was just watching her with a friendly smile.

Emi got up and put her leg on the table like she did every day, stretching.

"Don't you ever take a day off from running?" he asked.

"Rain doesn't hurt Evan. It's actually refreshing," said Emi, bending sideways and grabbing her foot.

"How's it going with your girlfriend?" she grunted.

"She came back."

"Oh?" Emi released some tension and looked at him.

"To pick up the rest of her stuff."

"Oh, I see." She went on to her next stretch.

"So you read the stories?" he asked.

"Yup," she said without looking at him.

"What did you think?"

"I don't know. I don't have experience with erotic stories. I guess I was kind of glad that it wasn't all hardcore sex. I only read a bit of the mailgirls one. The stories were actually kind of entertaining to read, well except the last one. That last one is pretty wild and disturbing, especially the end."

"You mean the ponygirl one?" he asked.

"Yeah"

"I usually just enjoy the first half of that particular story. Rarely do I read the full thing," he explained

"Usually? How many times have you read it?" She smirked.

"So did you imagine yourself in her place?" he countered with his own smirk.

Emi nodded and looked around, signaling Evan to come closer so that she could speak quietly.

Intensely interested he came right up to her.

She bonked him hard on the head. "No, I did not, you dumb-ass. I thought that you wanted to talk about your girlfriend."

"No point now. She's gone." he sighed.

"You don't seem that broken up about it today. Did you want to talk about it?" said Emi as she switched legs and pointed her butt at him.

"No, I don't want to talk about her. Our breakup really hurt at first, but you know what, we were gradually getting tired of each other. I say good riddance." he said bitterly.

"Maybe she is just trying to scare you," Emi offered over her shoulder.

"No, that ship has sailed. Yeah, I don't really want to talk about her right now."

"Alright," she relented.

"So those stories were pretty wild, eh? Have you ever fantasized about anything like that?" he asked.

"No."

"Oh come on, all girls like to play around with exhibitionism at least once in their lives. Accidental panty shot or shirt too open. Girls love to speed up the heartbeat of a guy. Admit it Emi. You girls have the ultimate power."

"I... I'm not really a sexual person Evan. I think that you already know that."

"What about that guy in university?"

Emi sat down and started loosening her shoelaces.

"He was a selfish jerk. He usually just called me over for sex and that was it," she said without looking at him. "He would just undress me and demand a blowjob. I always refused and then we would do it and then a minute later he told me to go home and come back tomorrow."

"Ah... that's too much info Emi."

"Are you my best friend or not?"

"I am, you are right. You can tell me anything." Evan smiled nervously.

"I was too naive. I kept thinking that maybe this was normal in the beginning, but as time passed I noticed that he just wasn't the romantic type. I didn't really hate him, but I think I just lost interest in the idea of relationships after that."

"You can't let one bad experience ruin you for life, Emi."

"I know, but I became focused on work and just lost interest over time I guess. Then I read your stories and I don't think that helped, to be honest. Is this really what guys fantasize about? Keeping girls as nude pets?"

"Yeaaaaah," Evan smiled with a mock dreamy face. "Ouch! Stop bonking my head, Emi! Cmon, you would totally love to get naked and run around and show off your charms. Admit it!"

Emi grabbed him by the shirt and pulled him close to her like a bully.

"First, nudity terrifies me. It doesn't excite me in the least."

"Second, I would rather be lit on fire and die a screaming death."

"Lastly, I wouldn't go nude if I were the last person on earth."

"Do you understand, Evan? Is this getting through to you, my best friend? Is our communication okay or do I need to find a new best friend?"

"Hey, I was just messing around."

"I hope so, let's just forget the stories for now, ok? You seem to be more interested in my reaction to them than if they actually caused your girlfriend to leave."

"Fine. Sorry to put you through all that. I didn't..." Evan stopped suddenly. He was staring at a giant poster on the wall. "Is that supposed to be..."

"Yeah, Princess Leia. The porny Asian cosplay version."

"But..." Evan stuttered.

"I thought it would liven up the place," Emi said casually.

Evan's mouth dropped open and slowly formed a smile.

"Yeah right, it was Doug, wasn't it?" Evan couldn't stop looking at it. "How... why did you agree to this?"

"I dunno, maybe I have a thing for hard nipples and dog leashes. Let's talk about work now."

Emi sighed. She wondered how much productivity would be lost because of that poster.

"Alright, let's focus on work now. Although, sometimes I wish just once that you could let your hair down and live a little," said Evan seriously.

"Are you kidding me?" she asked suddenly serious as well.

"I don't mean get naked, of course, but you know I don't think I've ever even seen you in a bathing suit. What's up with that?" he said softly.

Emi didn't know what to say. She was getting uncomfortable.

"Look, I'm sorry... let's just focus on work then," he relented, patting her on the back.

Emi put her headphones on and started browsing through source code, looking for a bug. Doug's stories and his poster were gradually starting to embolden Evan, she thought. Emi looked back at the poster when he wasn't looking. The topless girl looked remarkably like herself, she noticed.

Later, around 10 am, the rest of the crew rolled in as usual. After the standup, Beth introduced everyone to Derrick, the new front end developer who also had some experience with server-side. Hopefully, he could assist Mathew and Doug when they got overrun with too much to do.