Below Deck - Love Under Lockdown

I arrived on time for the first time in weeks. Through a lovely twist of fate, Lady Lauren did not. She came in a full half hour after I did. I didn’t say anything but made sure I was at the water cooler so I could give her a very significant smile as she steamed past. Two inches closer and she would have body checked me into the wall. Petty as it was, my smile grew, delighted by the fact I was able to get into her head.

Properly rehydrated, I returned to my office, my earbuds giving me the gift that was “Do You Hear the People Sing?” I strode to my corner office to prepare for the first day of recording. The sun streaming in through the window seemed a very good omen.

I was still a bit nervous about seeing Max again. Especially what had happened at lunch the previous Friday. He had apologized of course, and I was never really all that angry. I was sadder and more hurt. But knowing he wasn’t trying to do that actually did make me feel better. It didn’t mean that he loved me or anything, but he was obviously concerned about my feelings and cared about my opinion since he still bothered to tell me about his plan and wondered what I thought about it.

He called me at home, no less. For some reason, that felt a lot more intimate than a working lunch. It was like he was there in my place, even if it was just his voice. That was probably why I imagined him in the bed with me. In some weird, meta way he had been.

I could feel my pussy getting wet just thinking about it. But it was too early in the day for me to take one of my trips to the bathroom, so I just had to suffer through. I was a professional and was going to bloody well act like it. Closing my eyes and getting into a Zen state of mind, I booted up my computer and started doing my best to get as many new clients as I could as I waited for the moment when Max would call me into his office to serve him.

I had a long wait. I chased and closed three new clients somewhere in the middle of the prestige list, an actual paper list next to my computer, before it happened.

“Come in?” I said, not really used to anyone knocking on my office door.

“Hey,” Max said, coming in closing the door behind him.

“May I?”

“Please,” I said, trying not to beg.

He came in and sat down in the chair on the other side of my desk, technically putting me in the position of power.

“How are things going?”

“Good, I just closed three accounts.”

“Wow,” Max started, genuinely surprised.

“Working hard for you, sir.”

“Glad to hear it, Carrie.”

Another tingle. That time in my tummy. The look in his eyes and the softness in his voice sent my hormones wild.

“Trying to win the contest, sir,” I confessed, without really meaning to.

“Contest?”

“The one for the agents. I think it is a really good idea and am trying my best to win. Or be one of the winners anyway.”

“Oh, no, you aren’t eligible for the competition.”

“What?” I asked, almost hearing my hopes of getting to know him in a more casual setting being crushed.

“As my assistant, you would be coming on the trip with me anyway. I need to leave both spots for winners clear for the other agents.”

I hadn’t thought of that. I was so used to my dual role I had come to think of them as separate things. Of course, I would be going with him! I felt both embarrassed and relieved. There was a chance after all, and I wouldn’t have to win to get it.

“Right, of course,” I said, trying to keep it cool.

“I’m also going to need a lot of help. It is going to be a lot of work recording who to bring and I’m going to need some eyes out there keeping track of things. I want you to go about your job as an agent like you usually do. The main thing I need your assistance with is the competition.”

I hadn’t really thought about it that way before, but it made sense after he explained it. I was no dummy myself, but Max had a way of seeing things that was really amazing. It was still mostly a hope, but there was a chance that with the money from Whitman and my work on the competition that I might get a raise in terms of both my jobs, which would keep me in my apartment a lot longer.

“I’m going to go and get back to work, but I would like a progress report at the end of the day. Nothing too rigorous. Just your general impressions. You don’t even have to write it out. Just come in at the end of the end of the day and tell me what you’ve seen.”