The Transition Plan

Hi Everyone! This is my Halloween Story Contest 2022. I hope you enjoy it, and please don't forget to vote and leave a comment. Comments help me to become a better writer, so please let me know what you think.

The Transition Plan

Kari felt her way through the complete darkness by memory, down the stairs to the basement of the building, orienting herself by the vague noises of the server room and HVAC units that were still running on a backup generator, and the groans of the masturbating ghost she was fairly certain lived down there. When she reached the utility room, she unthinkingly felt for the light switch and flipped it, snorting with disgust at her stupidity when nothing happened. Of course, nothing happened, they had blown the power again. Still, old habits were hard to break.

Feeling her way through this room was more difficult. The utility room was filled with dusty old equipment, files, and all the other random things that her boss kept down here for god knows what reason. Was he preparing for Armageddon? The world's weirdest garage sale? That was the problem with being brilliant. Everyone was too intimidated to tell you that you were just one racoon infestation away from being a certified hoarder. Kari didn't mind, though. If Dean Thompson wasn't a hot mess, she wouldn't have had a job these last 12 years.

Closing her eyes to help her focus, more than anything else, she reached out and made her way in the direction of the fuse box. The annual company Halloween party had been raging along when one too-many things had been plugged into the DJ's power strip and they were all plunged into darkness. Knowing the party would crash quickly, she'd run for the stairs in her long white silk slip pre-bloodbath 'Carrie' costume without bothering to even put shoes on. Now, she regretted that decision because she was stubbing her toes on everything and she was pretty sure that she would need tetanus and rabies shots before she went home that night.

Just as she made it to the fuse box, a loud crash from the doorway made her jump, and she heard the sounds of someone big moving into the room. Whoever it was, they didn't seem to respect the carefully planned twisting paths through her boss' detritus. Either that, or he was halfway in the bag already. They all were. It was a pretty good party. Kari turned back to the fuse box to get the lights on before he buried himself in an avalanche. She was moving her fingers over the switches to see which one she needed to flip, when whoever it was unknowingly pushed her aside. Alarmed to be briefly airborne in complete darkness, Kari let out a scream as she began to fall backwards toward a pile of old monitors.

"Fuck!" she heard a muffled voice curse, just before a strong arm grabbed her waist and pulled her against a tall, furry body. She wrapped her arms around his neck, glad to avoid a painful death from being impaled on outdated electronics. "Goddammit..." said the voice again, and she heard the sound of a costume head being pulled off. They wobbled unsteadily together, panting, when for reasons Kari couldn't explain, she leaned up to where she felt his warm beer breath brushing against her, and kissed him.

"Mmmh?" The voice sounded just like a confused dog and she couldn't help herself and giggled as she kissed him even more deeply. Kari loved being half-drunk. It felt like a wonderful mix of freedom and carefree enjoyment of simple things, like kissing. "Mmmm..." the voice sighed in apparent agreement, clutching her closer to him, slipping his tongue into her mouth, and growling hungrily. She melted against him, only to have him hold her tighter. Soon, their kissing competed with their panting, feverish breaths.

She wrapped a leg around him, causing her silky slip to hike up her leg, but she didn't mind. He didn't seem to mind, either, because he pushed it up even further when he reached around and pulled her bottom closer to him. She gasped at the feel of his hot length against her hip, then reached down to touch it through his furry suit. He groaned into her mouth when she stroked it firmly. She decided she wanted him in her mouth and felt around for how she could get under his costume, but failed because it must have zipped up the back.

With a muttered curse, he moved his hand down between her legs, feeling around until he found her clit with his fingertips, stroking through her slippery valley before returning to wetly caress her clit. She wished she had thought of having him do that earlier, because it really was the best thing ever. He hitched her higher, trailing his warm mouth down her neck, nudging her loose neckline aside to take her breast in his mouth. She arched her back, pressing herself up to him, feeling his wet mouth consuming her greedily. His mouth drove her crazy, softly biting and tugging, growling filthy unintelligible orders that her body begged her to obey immediately.

When she was quivering on the edge, his hand moved lower and pushed what felt like a lot of fingers inside her. She wailed in surprise and need, rolling her hips to let him stretch her around him while he pushed deep. If the cock she felt in his costume was any indication, she would need all the expanding she could get. She panted and sighed as he rubbed and dipped and used his fingers on her until she was whimpering needily into his mouth. Then, she felt his lips smile against hers and he started laughing softly, but she didn't see the joke. Kari figured that most humor became too obscure when you needed to come so much that you're whimpering.

She felt her crest coming, certain to re-invent her entire existence, and grabbed at the fuse box for balance. As luck would have it, her motion flipped the tripped switch back into position, making all the electrical things come humming back to life. It also considerably brightened up the utility room, so that she could see Dean Thompson, the boss himself, in his King Kong suit, open his eyes and slowly lift his lips away from hers. Then, all of a sudden, Kari didn't feel drunk anymore. Thompson seemed similarly very awake and aware of his surroundings. Say what you will about coffee, but pure adrenaline will sober anyone up.

"Uh... I was just seeing to the... fuse box..." she mumbled.

"Circuit breaker... yes. Good... good..." he replied, nodding.

They didn't say anything for a while, just stood there as they were, looking around at the mess he'd made when he came crashing into the room. It was odd, considering that he still had his fingers inside her and she was half wrapped around him, but getting out of an awkward situation first requires a person to admit to themselves that they are actually *in* that situation, and at that moment, Kari Sanders and Dean Thompson just weren't emotionally prepared for that level of horror.

"Um... I should grab some more power strips while I'm down here... so we don't blow another fuse..." she mumbled, taking one of her hands from around his neck and scratching her nose, before casually clutching it down over her gaping neckline and her exposed breasts.

"Circuit... yes, that's... that's a good idea," he said, carefully extricating his fingers from inside her and wiping them on his furry leg.

Slowly and painstakingly in their efforts to pretend like nothing inappropriate had happened, they separated themselves and restored their clothing to the appropriate places and located four power strips to distribute. Then, after covering his beet red face with the King Kong head, he gestured for Kari to lead the way out of the room.

Kari had barely taken a step through the mess when he swept her up in his arms. "Why aren't you wearing any shoes?" he growled, "I know I broke some glass on my way in here..." As he carried her, Kari was acutely aware of how his body felt under his costume. Hard muscles she vaguely knew he'd had in the abstract were now pressed against her side and under the backs of her legs as he carefully stepped to the other side of the room with her in his arms.

Once he'd carried her over the threshold, he leaned down and gently put her back down on her bare feet. "Thank you," she said, slightly breathless, looking up into the monstrous face of the angry Kong. She wished she could see his face, or have any inkling of how they were supposed to move on after this, but the hairy latex mask told her nothing. "I'll just... go pass these out," she said, gesturing feebly with the power strips, before padding away from him in the dim basement lighting. He watched her go until the door to the staircase closed and blocked her from his view, then slumped and thudded his head against the wall.

*** *** ***

Evan Thompson twisted the pen in his hands apart and back together, wondering how he was going to get through the next meeting. Over the last week, he'd had numerous complaints about his normally kind and composed, if disorganized, older brother. What was equally bewildering was that none of those complaints had come from Kari, the woman sitting at the desk in front of his office, focusing a bit too intently upon her work. Kari knew everything, and he hadn't heard a peep from her.

Kari Sanders never failed to drop whatever she was doing and chat with whomever came to do business with Dean. Most people didn't realize that behind her friendly banter, she was a shrewd and protective bodyguard. She was the soft touch that hid an iron fist. She soothed nervous job applicants, charmed upset clients, and raised a withering eyebrow at the suck-ups that wanted to flatter Dean into funding their pointless vanity projects. If anything was bothering Dean, Kari usually jumped on top of it, wrestled it to the ground and hogtied it before Dean even noticed anything was happening. He would be a complete wreck without her. Of course, right now, with the Head of HR waiting to talk to Dean about his reportedly terrifying outbursts, Kari was chewing on her thumbnail and nervously flickering her eyes up to Evan with increasing frequency. What the hell was going on?

Kari flinched at the sound of something shattering from inside Dean's office, followed by a panicked curse. "Uh... he'll just be a few minutes," she said breathlessly as she jumped up and hurried with a garbage bin into his office.

Evan waited a moment, then entered the office uninvited. Kari was on her knees picking up the shards of a coffee cup from the floor, a brownish stain dribbling down the wall nearby. His brother, who normally couldn't keep his adoring eyes off the curvy, golden-haired beauty, was glaring at the opposite corner of the room where a seemingly innocuous ficus tree had given him cause for offense.

"What?" Dean barked, glancing at Evan before moving his eyes to his computer. "Whatever it is, I don't have time right now. Just deal with it!"

"Why? What's going on?" Evan asked, moving to sit on the corner of his brother's desk and picking up the baseball sitting there.

"None of your business," he snapped, his eyes following Kari as she took the garbage can out of the office.

"'Transition Plan...'" Evan murmured, leaning over and reading aloud the title of the document on Dean's laptop. "What transition?" he asked.

"It's nothing. Just a... nothing," Dean said through his teeth, watching Kari return with paper towels and a spray bottle.

"I resigned," Kari said, spraying the coffee stain on the wall and unrolling several towels.

"What?" Evan coughed, feeling like he'd been punched.

"NO, YOU FUCKING DIDN'T!!" Dean bellowed, surging to his feet and stalking over to her.

"He needs to re-assign those tasks until a replacement can be found. I've got a job description ready to post on LinkedIn and the other sites. You should be able to start screening candidates by--"

"YOU ARE NOT QUITTING, KARI!" Dean yelled, towering over her. Kari, by contrast, said nothing, and simply washed the coffee stain off the wall, until she paused to hand the incensed Dean her dirty bundle of paper towels and unroll another bundle to wash the floor.

"I've been sending Mr. Thompson notices of my resignation since the Halloween party, but he just keeps deleting them, so I'll send you one directly, Evan," Kari said, standing again and taking the wet paper towels back out of Dean's hands, ignoring his nearly unhinged expression. Evan would have laughed aloud, if the situation hadn't been so serious.

"Kari, please, are you sure? Is there anything we can--" Evan began, trying to wrap his head around the situation.

"STOP CALLING ME 'MR THOMPSON!'" Dean roared, "YOU KISSED ME FIRST, YOU KNOW!"

In the sudden silence that followed, Evan's eyes widened, then quickly sought out the ficus tree in the corner. "Go work in HR, they said... it's easy, they said," he muttered under his breath. What the hell was he going to do with this mess? "Why don't we all just... take a step back, here," he said, finally. "Dean, let's get you off to Uncle Steve's place in Wyoming. Nice and quiet. Stuff's generally less breakable, there. Give you a chance to figure things out with the transition."

"There's not going to be any transition," Dean growled, glaring at Kari's stiff shoulders as she doggedly kept her back to him.

"Kari, in the last 12 years of taking care of my brother hand and foot, you've accumulated over five months of untaken vacation time. Why don't you take a couple months off and think about things."

"There's nothing to think about," Kari sighed with a calm resignation that was more terrifying to Evan than his brother's bluster.

"Well, if you stay with the company through January, you'll be entitled to your next bonus..." Evan wheedled.

Kari turned slightly until he could see her profile. Her skin was flushed pink, her green eyes, red and brimming. "Fine, if you want, Evan... but it's not going to change anything. I... I need to go."

*** *** ***

"Where did she go?" Dean's voice crackled over Evan's phone without any form of greeting.

"I can't believe you guys threw a Halloween party without telling me. That's really hurtful, you know?" Evan replied, ignoring the question.

"You hate parties. Your version of a party is a Prohibition-era baby shower," Dean grumbled.

"That's because drinking makes people lose their inhibitions. Then, I end up have to ask people to identify pictures of their genitals that they sent to customers. You realize that I have to walk around with pictures of people's junk burned into my brain? You think I can have a normal conversation with a person after that? What is seen cannot be unseen. How's Wyoming?"

"Terrible! Mountains and buffalo and beautiful shit everywhere that makes me want her to see it! Where did she go?"

"I have no idea... maybe there was another party that nobody invited me to," Evan grumped.

"Have you talked with her? Why is she doing this? How do we fix it?" Dean asked, sounding on the brink of shouting again.

"You know, Dean, the phone works by sending your normal voice to a satellite that bounces it down to a cellular tower near me. You don't actually have to project your voice to me from Wyoming. Modern technology is amazing that way."

"Have you heard from her? Where is she? I need to talk with her," Dean said more quietly.

"No. You need to work on the transition plan. From what she said, I don't think she's going to be changing her mind," Evan said.

"What did she say? Did she-- is she mad at me? You know, she kissed *me!* She kissed me and it was... it was... fuck, why is she quitting?"

"She didn't say, exactly, but with the timing of things... maybe she's embarrassed?"

"This is all your fault, you know!"

"Ah, I was wondering when we'd get to that part. How is it my fault, again?"

"You made me act so... weird and awkward! You wouldn't let me tell her how beautiful she was, touch her, or see her outside of work, or give her any flowers or gifts outside of the branded crap in the company shop, or--"

"Or treat her in any way that would potentially create a hostile work environment for her and make her quit and sue us within her first month of employment? What was I thinking?" Evan asked.

"Yeah! You stuck me in the friendzone for 12 years!"

"Don't say 'friendzone,' man. Makes you sound like an incel."

"What's an incel?" Dean asked.

"An 'involuntary celibate.' It's these whiny guys who think they should have done better with women than they have and blame it on women being shallow instead of recognizing that their own shitty personality or lack of ambition or personal hygiene had anything to do with it."

"I don't have a shitty personality!"

"Say it louder, Dean, maybe a buffalo will come and sympathize with you."

"This is all your fault. Did she... did she say anything about me?" Dean asked, the note of desperation in his older brother's voice breaking Evan's heart.

"She... she said she thinks you're going to be okay," Evan said, evasively.

"What? That doesn't sound like her. What *exactly* did she say about me?"

Evan sighed, "She um... she said, 'Don't worry. He'll be fine once you get him another... mommy.'"

Evan's phone went silent as he waited for his brother to digest the news. "Oh god. Oh... fuck. Fuck, Evan... she has no idea. Twelve years and she has no fucking idea! I meet the woman of my dreams and you make me act like a fucking eunuch around her for twelve years and she just thinks she's... fuck! This is all your fault! Why is it if Human Resources isn't being utterly fucking useless, they're just fucking everything up?"

"Might have something to do with the humans involved..." Evan grumbled under his breath.

"FIX THIS!" Dean roared.

*** *** ***

Evan didn't fix it. He wouldn't even say where Kari had gone. Thankfully, the employee rewards platform was more helpful, and showed Dean a company discount had been applied to a Delta flight to the Bahamas. He smiled. Of all the places she could have gone, she went there. He didn't usually put much stock in things like destiny, but now he was beginning to wonder. After a few phone calls, Dean chartered a boat, stocked it, and sailed off for a secluded shore on one of the Abaco islands.

His mind was full of things he needed to ask her and tell her, but none of it assembled together in a way that made any sense. They had kissed! Finally! After 12 years! That meant something! After years of polite distance, a spark had effortlessly turned into a blazing fire between them in just seconds -- and she kissed him! It wasn't like he forced it on her. Why... why would she leave now? Why leave his life in ruins? Just over a kiss? Whatever reason she had, it was wrong!

Dean sailed the boat around the point where Rollie, his Bahamian childhood partner in crime, said the howler monkeys lived, which was weird because howler monkeys hadn't made it out to the islands, last Dean had heard. Then, he saw the small cluster of bungalow style houses he was looking for. His heart raced, and he scanned the beach for her, expecting to see her lazing in the late morning sun on the beach with a drink and a book, but the beach was deserted.

He tied in to a dock that Rollie warned him had two rotten boards near shore, and walked the planks, feeling every thought in his mind drain away as he came closer to the houses. As he drew near, he saw a figure standing on the veranda of the middle house. Even at this distance, he knew it was her. Strangely, she was standing on a chair, facing away from the beautiful azure waves.

Before he could reach her, he was met by several people who walked out of their houses eagerly. "God! Finally! We've been out of half-and-half for days! Did Rollie send you? He promised he'd bring me some on the next trip, but it's been for-ev-er," a woman in a robe called out as she walked up to him at the end of the dock. "We need more bread, ham and -- Kevin what was that thing I wanted?" she yelled back to where a man was lying in a hammock.