Temporary Reassignment free porn video

Temporary Reassignment By Olga Turlovna 1 - Newbie If good looking women are the water of life, Pharmalens Inc. was an arid desert. So for those of us who worked there, pretty much every heterosexual guy took note the day Victoria de Vere first crossed the office threshold, her high heels clacking noisily and with her elegant legs making a rustling sound as she moved in that delightfully figure- hugging formal office skirt. She was all we could talk about on her first day. "Did you see her body?" Fat Leslie groaned longingly, rubbing his hands over his eyes as though he was trying to wipe the image away. "How am I supposed to work when there's that in front of me?" Luckily, or perhaps unluckily for Leslie, there weren't too many distractions of Victoria's standard to distract lustful eyes. Pharmalens made something called chemical intermediates - building blocks used in the process of turning a bunch of powders and drums of liquid into valuable drugs. In America, chemical formulation and engineering are still very male bastions today, so at Pharmalens when eighty percent of the company's staff were guys, you could literally have counted the attractive women among our one-hundred-and-twenty-one employees on one hand. It was a right shock to my system when I joined. Overnight, the halcyon time of my life when I could stroll around my college campus seeing the beautiful everywhere I looked had gone. There were too many hotties to remember at college. At Pharmalens - I knew the details of every last desirable one. We had Nicola Wade (Human Resources, prim, blonde, was hardly ever in the main offices, relationship status: uncertain); Adele Johnson (Technician, brunette, hot in a trailer-park way, status: dated Brian Mullholland, one of the biggest jerks in the company - after that no one wanted his seconds); Emma Peck (Production planning, blonde, was slim as a model, joined through the graduate scheme with Fat Leslie and me so we saw her in a swimsuit on a team building exercise, status: was dating a U.S. Marine so no one went near her if they want to live); and finally Mimi Ortega (Research Scientist, African American, body like Jada Pinkett, party girl, status: serial dater. Factory rumor was that Mimi did a porno to help pay her way through college, but no one actually seemed to have seen it - always "friend of a friend" stories). We were pretty sure that tale was another example of Wyatt Webber's bullshit. Into this frustrated mix sashayed Victoria de Vere. Victoria seemed tall compared to the average woman, although you never saw her without high heels so it was difficult to be sure of her true height. Her chestnut hair was ruler straight to down between her shoulder blades, where it was trimmed in a perfect line. She had pleasing breasts, and although her hips weren't particularly wide the feminine curve of her pelvis was helped by a narrow waist. She walked in that style of crossing foot in front of foot, the way catwalk models do parading the runway. On her first day Victoria wore a navy skirt suit with a white blouse, which made her look more like a company vice president than the lowly office temp. After that I only saw her in that same executive outfit once or twice, when she was on reception greeting VIPs or assisting with notes at one of the board meetings. Most of the time she wore dresses. They ranged from thigh-length to ankle length, colored red, grey, ochre, and black. Always body-clinging-tight, and yet demure. Revealing but not revealing. Sometimes she had hose, sometimes bare legs. But in all the workdays I was watching her, I never once saw her in anything with short sleeves. We were sometimes permitted to see Victoria's legs all the way up to her ass, but we weren't allowed to look at her arms. I wasn't the only one mesmerized by the contradiction of her clothing, her manner, and her innate sexiness - professional frigidity protecting an unconsciously sensual way of moving that challenged every man to try to claim her. She was asked out three times on the first day, including by the VP of marketing, who happened to look as good as a movie star and drove a convertible Jaguar. All offers were declined. Female staff were urged by male colleagues to befriend her at the water cooler, and report back any information. We wanted to know everything about her. How long had she been temping? Answer - Around a year and a half. Did she go to college? Answer - She majored in literary arts at Brown University. Where did she live? Answer - in one of the low to middle-income neighborhoods of the city, but she wouldn't reveal an actual street name. And most important of all - was she single or not- single? Answer - not clear, but there was some passing mention of a guy with whom she shared an apartment. Any attempts at deeper personal questions came up against a brick wall. Inquiries about her private life or what she was into outside work were politely but firmly deflected. There was a Victoria de Vere we were permitted to see at Pharmalens, but when the day was over, Victoria de Vere drove her beat-up Nissan out the parking lot and away into a world blocked to us all. There was no tolerance of familiarity anywhere in the brunette's defenses, not even in her name. She was always Victoria. She was able to intimidate even our boorish CEO out of trying to shorten her name to Vicky, Tory, or Vic, when she served coffee to his plush executive office. Victoria de Vere had been hired to cover the maternity leave of the usual Admin Assistant, Helen, a woman who was so ugly her partner deserved a medal for knocking her up. A definite improvement there. Helen was gonna be out of commission for six months, which we took as a hopeful sign we would be enjoying our daily view of Victoria for a while. And before she'd been with us a month, I started to admit to myself I'd have been pretty devastated if I came in one Monday morning and suddenly my favorite temp was no longer there. Fat Leslie, who shared my office along with Emma Peck, tried his luck on the second week, asking Victoria to a movie to see the latest X-Men adaptation. Maybe, just maybe, he thought, she was one of those girls you read about who actually preferred the out of condition and socially awkward nerds, and she'd been shyly waiting for the right geek to come along and fulfil her empty life. But it was a no for him too, although she rejected him more gently than the more seasoned hunters. Hearing him relate the details of their conversation afterwards left me even more impressed with Victoria. There weren't many beauties who with enough empathy to understand the courage it must have taken Leslie to psych himself up. According to Leslie, Victoria had told him she was flattered but she just didn't do office dating. And that was okay. Leslie hadn't really expected success anyway, so he even seemed buoyed up by his knockback. She'd not said no to him "because he weighed more than a rhino". Only the no to office relationships. Thus in our eyes, having the class to be diplomatic was added to her other qualities. Victoria continued to get proposals, but they gradually tailed-off over the weeks, and for my part, hearing her answer to Leslie put an end to any ideas I'd cherished on making a move. It's not like I played in the major leagues when it came to dating. I was smart, but no beefcake. In fact I was worse off even than many of my fellow nerds when it came to attracting feminine women, because I was particularly un-masculine. I had been cursed to grow up with bone structure as thin as a girl's, and my face was fine, without much of a brow or jutting chin. I was the last guy in my high school year to get stubble, and it was still thin working for Pharmalens four years after graduation. Being blond made any shadow even less obvious - I'd seen fourteen-year-olds with better beards. My Adam's apple was barely visible, and my voice was weak - high and reedy. Our part of America wasn't liberal enough for the androgynous look to be a positive thing. For example I was walking around in denim cutoffs at a music festival the previous year and some guys behind me wolf-whistled my legs and ass, thinking I was a woman. When I turned round in surprise they were so pissed at me for being a guy, as though I were to blame for enticing them, I had to run and lose myself in the crowd in one of the busy public tents. And that wasn't the only time I was been mistaken for a woman - just the most memorable. My parents were worried about my lack of teenage development, and when I was about fifteen the doctor tested me for something called Klinefelter Syndrome, where a guy has XXY chromosomes instead of XY. The results came back negative, I was a regular male, although my testosterone levels were very low, probably because I'd caught mumps at the wrong age. If you imagine a spectrum of masculinity going from ladyboy to Conan, I was right at the ladyboy end. Even my name, "Alex", was ambiguous. I was offered meds back then, but fate took a wrong turn and right after the consultation Pa lost his job for a little while and money got tight. By the time it was practical to reconsider chemically butching me up, it was too late and the family's savings were going to my college fund. If I'd been gay I might have considered transitioning once I turned eighteen. But my limited reserves of testosterone were enough to make sure I grew-up stubbornly heterosexual, and limited finances meant I couldn't have afforded it anyway. Transitioning would have cost me a ton of money and effort to achieve what? Rendering myself attractive to lesbians who were more masculine than I was? So I continued on the same unhappy track on through my early twenties, enjoying only the occasional dates and only losing my virginity in the last few weeks in college to a sweet but homely woman that I think had slept with me out of sympathy. I'd keep reading how the androgynous look - early David Bowie or Prince, was really attractive, but the women I desired - those A-grade beauties - never looked twice at me. Like so many who obsess on the unobtainable, instead of settling with the kind of girl I might have had a chance with - a pretty, homespun, churchgoing Mary-Beth or Kimmy-Lou, I fixated on the exceptional ones, watching them from afar, until I got into a mindset when no-one else but a woman like that would do. I knew the danger but couldn't avoid falling into the trap, and that's just what happened yet again, when Victoria de Vere arrived at Pharmalens. Only at a time of my life when there was no-one else to draw my attention but her, with Victoria it got much, much worse. 2 - First Most days, midway through the morning Victoria would get released to use Pharmalens' really state of the art coffee machine. I was lucky, or again maybe unlucky was a better word when it was about something I could never have, in that her route walking to the machine took her right past the glass-walled office where I had my desk. Each day when she went by Leslie and I would pause to watch the way she moved and held herself, even when we didn't mean to. Emma Peck found it the funniest thing ever to catch us in the act. She thought we were total losers, and she was probably right. Within a week or two of Victoria's arrival, watching her for those few seconds wasn't enough. I'd get up and make my visit to the machine when she did, and with the two of us fueling up with our daily caffeine fix I'd try to make small talk, asking whether she was settling in all right, and how she was doing here. Of course when I heard her voice it was as classy as everything else her - the East Coast accent of a daughter from America's premier families. She sounded like the relative of a Kennedy or Rothschild or Rockefeller, speaking a private school soprano that teased and contradicted, just like everything else about her - breathy erotic sensuality caged behind a professional facade. She drank espresso, which immediately made my frothy cappuccinos feel unfashionable in comparison. Within a few encounters I'd exhausted all questions I could come up with that might have led to a more involved conversation. After that our meetings would constitute my lamely repeating my brief enquiries asking whether she was well, and checking whether everything was good for her here at Pharmalens. Home alone in the evenings, I found myself thinking about her. I Googled her, searching fruitlessly for images. Her Facebook page was there but the photo looked several years out of date - a headshot against a neutral background that gave nothing away. I couldn't access any private Facebook photos and I didn't dare try to add her as a friend. She wasn't on LinkedIn. And the only Victoria de Vere I found on Twitter had no profile photo, and there was no activity on the account. When I looked for websites referring to her, I found a connection to the swimming team at Brown, but no images. She had a puzzlingly low internet presence, with a completely blank couple of years between graduation and temping. The possibility she was protecting some dark secret - Victoria changing her name and on the run from some stalker or something like that - only made her more fascinating to me. I sound like a geeky loser already, and I'm about to come across a lot worse, but I swear what initiated the next phase of our lives wasn't premeditated. It was almost as though fate actively conspired to throw fuel on the fire of my growing obsession. It began on a normal weekday morning when I was stood behind her at the coffee machine, admiring the way her ass moved in the day's dress (a black affair only mid-thigh length, showing a lot of bare leg by Victoria's standards), and the smartphone in my pocket buzzed discreetly with an incoming email. Purely out of habit I pulled the phone out of my pocket to check the message, but instead of displaying the email somehow it had gotten itself in video mode. Bible I swear it being on camera wasn't deliberate, but what happened next was. I looked from the screen to Victoria to the screen to Victoria and almost as if someone else was controlling me I pressed the red record button. Silently it filmed - five seconds, ten seconds - the machine making its labored noise as it ground the coffee beans. Those moments will always be unforgettable for me. She was leaning slightly forward watching her espresso dribble its way slowly into a beige cardboard cup. Right behind her my heart was pounding, and I felt an excitement I'd not experienced for months. My dick grew almost instantly hard in the smart pants I wore for work. It was awesome. I was capturing a trophy of Victoria de Vere, something of her that I alone in the world possessed. I felt high with the thrill of the taboo and the risk of discovery - my zombie-dull working day suddenly exploding into vibrant life. Glowing with joy I slowly panned the camera from side to side across her rump, keeping as close behind her as I dared. The rumbling coffee machine came to a stop and Victoria was about to turn to go, but I bravely forced myself even further into the forbidden. I'd crossed a line already - I might as to try for a shot of her face. Holding the phone low in my hand, nonchalantly, as though I'd forgotten it was even there, I let my arm hang by my side, palm still presenting the lens towards her. My mind raced with strategies, telling me that if I could converse with her, she'd look at me and not at the phone. I had to say something, anything. "You're an addict too - caffeine, I mean..." is what came out of my mouth. Victoria de Vere turned to look at me with her glorious blue-grey eyes and I met her gaze straight on, not daring to look down. The fear that she'd discover me was making my face heat - I was thinking how the phone must be so obvious, but it was too late when shifting position would make it look as though I were hiding it. Tough it out, I told myself. "Are you okay Alex?" she asked, raising a neatly shaped eyebrow. "You look like you're going to pass out." Overwhelmed, both by what was happening and the discovery that Victoria actually knew my name, it was the best I could do to make some dumb ass noise that was like "mwuh" in response. But I guess it sounded positive enough to satisfy, or she was used to men being hypnotized in her presence, for then Victoria just shrugged and said, "Enjoy the rest of your day". And she walked away from me down the corridor, not knowing that all the while I was recording her. Exhaling explosively with relief, I stopped the video when she finally passed out of sight. I felt so revved it was difficult then not to run back to my desk. I managed to proceed calmly, but when I arrived and Emma observed with a knowing smile, "You forgot your coffee," I had the embarrassment of going back to the machine. I had been first of the three of us at Pharmalens to move into our shared office. It had glass walls on three side and whiteboards on the last, but there were storage units fitted around the edges and as the founding inhabitant I was able to claim the desk where my screen couldn't be overlooked. Joining last, Emma had the worst workstation, with a monitor that was visible to someone coming in the door. During office hours I had seen her online shopping for shoes, looking at YouTube videos on applying makeup, paying utility bills and visiting websites about the Kardashians. It's not just guys who slack. In contrast to Emma's situation I had total privacy and someone could only see my work by walking right around the desk. That meant I had plenty of warning to close any inappropriate material. On the momentous day of movie number one, as soon as I could I opened up the phone camera and hit play on the video. The immediate murmur of recorded noise made me jump so badly I nearly dropped the phone as I fumbled for the mute. Emma looked up, and I tried to make my shrug of apology seem casual. And then there it was. After the weeks mooning over her I was at last able to do what I most wanted - openly watch Victoria de Vere. I had her captured, forever leaning forward just for me. The screen showed her first from the level of my chest - the instant just after I'd pressed record, and then once I'd lowered my arm I viewed her from an angle right in line with her divine backside, as though I had impossibly been permitted to crouch right down and stare at her. Dear Lord, I thought, the woman had a nice ass. What I wouldn't have given just to press my face into her exquisite cheeks. After my video had panned backwards and forwards over the twin globes of perfection, the view shifted to watch her from further away. Next it was playing back of the moments when I moved the phone to my hand, to try and catch her face. That segment was less successful. The lighting must have been dimmer in the area around the machine than it seemed to human perception, for although I'd panned the camera upwards the right amount to capture Victoria's face, in the movie it was too dark to clearly make out her features. She barely moved for several seconds - repeating the moments when she'd answered my question and asked if I looked unwell. When she walked away the auto-brightness did its job again and I found I'd captured the Victoria de Vere catwalk movement, but (dumbass, what a dumbass), my innocent pose holding the phone had left my forefinger partially obscuring the view, and the upper part of her had been blocked by my own blurred pink flesh. So my first attempt at voyeurism had only produced B-grade results, but the images had made my penis iron hard anyway, and I elatedly knew that these movies had immense potential to bring me pleasure. But I also felt the first notes of apprehension, for I recognized a Pandora's Box had been opened between myself and Victoria de Vere, and I'd just unleashed a need that I wouldn't have the strength or the willpower to ever stop again. 3 - Obsession Once I was able to sit and watch Victoria over and over at leisure, I could take in things about her that had been beyond me during our short encounters in real life. Whilst actually in her presence, I'd believed her almost tall enough to model, but on video, where I could properly appraise her, she seemed to me shorter, with cream limbs that yes, were shapely, but were only slightly above average length. It was the heels she wore that did the work making her legs look so long. I'd never had the opportunity to properly stare at her breasts either until I had them on video - most women naturally take offense at that - and I'd formed the impression she had a pleasing but modest chest. But on camera it was clear Victoria's boobs were actually quite large, and her figure strained against her dress to show flesh as lush and full as melons. As for the sequence I'd filmed right up close to her rear - well, even with the benefit of replay I could make out no sign of a panty line through the tight black fabric of the dress. It excited me profoundly to think I'd discovered a secret about her - she either wore underwear thin enough to be invisible, or even more thrilling - nothing at all. During the first video day, management had Victoria staffing the reception desk, and passing there and back on my lunch break I looked at her keenly, wondering if she was open, exposed, under the skirt. She gave me her cool smile as I went by. When evening came I watched the same movie again and again. Alone in private I masturbated furiously over it, imagining her lifting that black dress to reveal her bare sex underneath, and then mounting my lap to fuck me. I slept uneasily, and by next morning I was more certain that the newly- awoken monster in me wasn't going to be satisfied with one movie. Victoria's dress on day two was in cement grey and it was even shorter than the one I had filmed. Grey-dress fitted tightly above her waist, but its skirt was loose and swished about her hips. If she'd twirled like a ballerina it would have floated up to show her underwear. Wanting to capture it I lingered around the office as much as I dared, my phone clammy with sweat in my pocket, but didn't catch anything on the second day because I'd been called down to the production line to troubleshoot an issue with a faulty meter. By the time I emerged I'd missed her morning coffee run. After a weekend which seemed to crawl interminably, on day three she came in wearing an ankle length scarlet gown - one of those that was as though she'd selected an outfit not for the office but for her senior prom. It was long sleeved of course, tight as far as her hips, and then it flared out to conceal the shape of her legs. For the first part of the morning I was too anxious and distracted to do much work, keeping constant watch through the glass partition waiting for her coffee time. When Victoria at last stepped gracefully by, as soon as I dared I was behind her, my phone already recording and again held low and casually in my hand. I'd prepared something new to ask her - an inconsequential question about an I.T. outage on Friday and whether it had caused her problems. So after scanning her backside with my camera for a second time, I angled upwards and stepped back ready to deliver my line. Once she'd retrieved her espresso Victoria turned and was ensnared by my gaze, and she replied that she'd been taking minutes in a meeting, and they'd had problems with the PowerPoints. With a formal "goodbye" in her high soprano, and with her head held high, she walked away. Eagerly I replayed the fresh movie back at my desk, this time being careful to check I'd muted the volume first. Again I'd caught the exquisite movement and shape of her rump. Oh, I could have worshiped that backside. The camera's view was still low when she first turned to face me, and checking this novel angle for the first time I was able to properly confirm she had a healthily flat stomach. Then there was the moment I'd pointed the camera up, the movie showed her face, and at last I could see her expression while she answered my question. The lighting still wasn't perfect, but it was good enough to clearly make out her features. Although she'd politely maintained eye contact during our brief conversation, for an instant I was almost certain her steel eyes flickered briefly down to look at my phone. It gave me quite a fright. My second video and already I'd had my warning from the Fates. For the rest of the day I half-expected Human Resources to arrive with a pink slip and two big guys to escort me off site. But evening arrived without incident and I breathed a sigh of relief as I understood I'd got away with it. I vowed that in future I was going to be more discreet - lesson learned - but the problem was, I still wanted more. Like any addict, nothing quite recaptures the buzz from the first time. I had become addicted to Victoria de Vere. The days rolled by and the number of my trophy movies gradually grew. In one of the frequent moments of introspective self-loathing my voyeuristic habit triggered, I concluded that what I felt had gone beyond my simply having a crush on the woman. I wanted to immerse myself in her life far more profoundly. I craved the chance to see her eat breakfast; shower; dress; work; drive her car; watch TV; work out; do whatever secret she did in her home life; and then sleep. For that I would have given anything I owned. It wasn't even about something as common as my wanting to screw her any more, although of course I still did. I needed to experience her world. At the time when my fixation reached its worst, there was an evening when I was about to drive out the parking lot and I saw Victoria emerge from the building and make for her aged Nissan. It took a superhuman effort of will for me not to follow her, but I remained on the right side of that line. To actually stalk her would have made me creepy to an extent not even I was ready to allow in myself. Nothing I'd done before then was illegal. I'd not shot movies actually up her skirts, catching images of her underwear (although I might have done if I could think of a method to get away with it). All I'd done was record movies in a public place, and only of Victoria wearing what she herself had chosen to show. I'd imposed some rules on myself after the incident where she might have looked at the camera. I didn't keep any movies of her on my phone, in case I got caught and searched. Footage was transferred first to a USB stick the first moment I was back at my desk, and transferred again to a portable hard drive as soon as I got home. If something went wrong I'd be able to claim it was my first offence - one moment of madness, rather than the obsession of a voyeur. Leslie and Emma had soon noticed I always took my breaks when Victoria did, but they took it to be sweetly innocent infatuation. They gave me some harmless teasing and never showed sign of guessing my real intent. All the same I imposed even more rules. Once they'd tuned in to my visits I only allowed myself to follow Victoria to the coffee machine once per week, so no-one would get too suspicious. But that regulation was hard for a weak man to follow, and I went maybe twice or even three times if she appeared wearing something particularly hot or an outfit I'd not filmed before. After the second day where she'd seemed to look at the phone I didn't permit trying to video her face at the coffee machine again, but that wasn't because I was controlling my addiction. It was only because I'd found a safer method of filming. One of Victoria's tasks was to go round the desks with the post. As soon as I realized the implications of this I started to get shopping sent to the office, just because she'd have to come to my desk and drop off the Amazon parcel. I found a way of positioning my phone on the work surface, propped without it looking deliberate. I did a couple of dry- runs, recording Emma Peck at her desk, she didn't notice me at all, so I confidently moved to my real target. Every Amazon day I'd catch a recording of Victoria walking towards my desk, putting down my packages, and then heading for the door. Front and back view, face, and even leaning over, all in one capture. The lighting was even good. And that's how the two of us continued our dance for a couple of months. As I spent more and more time in Victoria's world, I grew familiar with all her work outfits. Like collectors cards, I craved a movie showing her in every single one, and I'd get anxious if she showed up wearing something new that I didn't yet have captured on video. I became depressed, and hated myself, but I was too pathetic to quit. In some ways our relationship had become purer. I'd not thought of sex with Victoria or asking her on a date for a long time. I no longer masturbated over the movies I'd recorded. All I wanted was to submerge myself forever in the small part of her life I was allowed. I had become a true voyeur. But destiny was heading for me with the inevitability of an express train. When you're a Peeping Tom, or someone with any kind of secret vices for that matter, co-incidences count. You might be taking a risk with a one in a thousand chance that the wrong thing happens at the wrong time, but over a long enough time the fatal numbers will eventually come up. The affair gets exposed on the day the spouse forgets their keys and returns home unexpectedly. The pornography is discovered on the one day you don't delete your internet history. A receipt is found for a bar, when you'd said you were working late that night. Double zero. House number, you lose. I should have known the unlucky card would eventually be dealt to me, but perhaps because I wanted to be caught I continued anyway, just going on and on, rolling the dice time after time. 4 - Busted It was an Amazon day when my life changed irrevocably, and it was started by one of those unfortunate co-incidences - the snowflake in the wrong place which triggers the avalanche. Making pharmaceutical intermediates isn't an easy business. Some of the things we do work on a knife edge, needing constant attention to keep the process running, and when things go wrong it costs money quickly. Pharmalens has a thing that with a lack of linguistic originality they call a "red alert". It's a production problem so urgent that thirty seconds difference can mean thousands of dollars of lost product. When there's a red alert everyone who's involved has to drop what they're doing and make straight for the line. I'm one of those guys. I was in the men's room when the red alert went out over the public address system. I'd been expecting a dead morning with nothing to do but watch my computer, so in a moment of weakness on that day I'd broken a cardinal rule and brought the master external hard drive in - the one with everything on. But no, before you jump to conclusions, I'd left my screen locked when I went to answer nature's call, and there were no files open. The time was 11 am. Unusually Victoria wasn't on reception when I hurried past, and it was too early for her to be on the mail round. I had a moment of worry that her contract had ended, and ugly Admin Helen had decided to return to work several months early. But to my relief, I found her in the plant control room, of all places, sat at one of the workstations. It was a day for the tight knee-length white dress. I liked her in that - it had a slit in the back between her legs that went half way up the distance to her buttocks, I guess to make it a little easier to walk, but with a result of suggestively hinting at hidden flesh. "Not your usual place," I commented to her as I began to study data streams from the plant monitoring. Victoria de Vere smiled coolly. "Eddie from I.T. got sick, you know Eddie? The guy that likes sports fishing." Grungy Eddie likes sports fishing? How did she find that out? I'd barely had a few sentences out of him my whole life. But Victoria was already continuing, "They need someone to manually install an emergency anti- virus update on every single computer on site. It's simple, but time consuming, so ideal grunt-work for a grunt like me." The awareness of danger, the approaching storm, crashed down on me then, so immediate and complete that I didn't hear what she said next. My mind was already racing away, back and forth telling me I was safe, then not- safe, ticking like a metronome. The flash drive was in my computer, the one with my Victoria files on. All of them. Not safe. But there must have been a hundred PCs in the building. It would take her all day to install the updates - the chance that she got to mine before I'd solved the red alert - unlikely. Safe. But what if she'd happened to do our office next? Not safe. But my computer was locked only to me. She would have had to go in separately as an admin account. Safe. The flash drive was password protected - safe - but I'd already unlocked it, so maybe she could have viewed it even with an admin login. Not safe. She wasn't likely to look on the drive, was she? Safe. But no, she was, because she would have to unplug it to put the other one in. Maybe she'd check what's on there first, just to be sure she didn't accidently delete my work. And what about my phone? It was there propped on the desk, ready in its record position. Would she notice the phone when she sat at the work station? Oh! Not safe, not safe, not safe! I must have betrayed something of my growing panic, because in her lovely white dress Victoria looked at me quizzically, the way she'd done on the day of the first video. Perhaps that contributed to my undoing, and if I'd showed no reaction things would have been fine, but I was behaving out of instinct. "Hope you solve your problem," she said uncertainly, and unplugging a USB stick from the computer in front of her, she was on her heels to move to the next station. Red alerts were often contained in five minutes, but with this one it was after twelve by the time I got free. I had to recode a patch on the complex plant control software, ContrasysPrime. Looking after Contrasys was a big part of my job. The system was written in an old version of C and it was a bitch to use. I applied my solution all the while trying to remain calm, but my heart was racing like I was in the middle of a marathon. How far round had Victoria made it? I kept worrying, and checking my watch. I considered abandoning my post all together. All I needed to do was run upstairs and pull out the offending drive, but to leave during a red alert would have been noticed and could have got me fired, and for what? To find that Victoria had been in a different part of the factory all together? At last I was done. Weak with relief, I half jogged back to my office. I burst through the glass door, and in a scene you've no doubt guessed was coming, I froze dead in my tracks. Stories talk about people wetting themselves in terror, and I never believed it could actually happen until I almost released my bladder from fear at that moment in my office. Victoria de Vere was in my place behind my desk, sitting right in my ergonomic chair with an expression of sick fascination on her face. I could tell from the flickering of the light on her face what she was doing. Watching one of my stupid, stupid movies. Clich?s abound for how I felt then. My stomach dropped to the floor. My heart skipped a beat, or tripled its rate at once. My skin broke out into a cold sweat. I felt sick with dread, and anticipation, and shame. She looked up, responding to the sound of me stopping rather than my loud bursting in, and our eyes met. From her expression I knew for certain she knew. It was a look of righteous fury that paralyzed me. I was busted. Emma was in the room, studying her own terminal at the edge of my peripheral vision, but I barely registered her presence. I was waiting for Victoria to say the words that would ruin me. Waiting for her to loudly denounce me as a pervert, a sicko, a creep. Waiting for her to get me fired. Perhaps the cops would get involved. What would they do to me in jail looking so much like a girl? I'd started today a successful professional. Within a few weeks I'd be some tattooed con's bitch. Victoria continued to look right at me, her features aggressively locked in challenge. I shook my head pleadingly, then could no longer meet her accusing gaze so I stared at the floor. My face was red and hot like I was a schoolboy in trouble. My spirits despaired. Come on Victoria, let's get this over with if we must. I didn't dare to renew battle with Victoria's eyes so I stole a look at Emma instead. She had sensed the tension with her woman's intuition and was looking quizzically between us. Victoria and I, as motionless as dueling cowboys. At last this brunette who held my life in her hands spoke. "Alex... I think the red alert meant you forgot we were supposed to be getting lunch," she stated in a slow, hard voice that clearly conveyed that she was a woman who was biblically pissed with me. In the same icy tone she ordered, "Let's go right now. I don't have long." Emma, who knew the publically acceptable version of my feelings for Victoria and therefore understood I would never, ever, willingly miss an appointment with the brunette, was almost as dumbfounded by this statement as I was. "Lunch?" I said in a voice quavering like a frightened child. "You want me to buy you lunch?" "Lunch," she repeated. Without waiting any longer, Victoria de Vere unplugged the incriminating flash drive from my computer and strode from my office. Her head was high and she was as bold and strong as an Amazon queen. In incomprehension I looked at Emma. "WTF was that about, dude?" she said, baffled. "What's her problem?" I had just enough self-possession not to burst into tears, and to grab my wallet, before shamefaced I was fleeing my office and running after the brunette. Powered by rage Victoria was halfway out the Pharmalens reception by the time I caught up. My employer was located on a small industrial park. Right across the street was an old-style diner run by a Polish emigre - "Anoushka's". It had the best menu and buffet for miles around, so it didn't just survive on the hi-tech firms on the park and it was always busy. Outside it was hot enough that the rising warmth made the air shimmer. Cicadas deafened with the volume of their mating calls. Even though she was furiously speed-marching, Victoria's heels and the restrictive skirt meant she couldn't walk too fast, so for the rest of the short journey to Anoushka's I was able to stumble humbly alongside her, an accessory to this angel. I was watching her frantically, squinting in the sun, her pale dress flouncing around her hips, but she didn't glance at me once. She flung open the door, not holding it for me and leaving me to grab for the handle. We entered into the cool of the diner's air conditioning, its smell of barbeque sauce and its loud buzz of conversation. We were lucky. There was a booth just vacated, and without pausing Victoria tucked herself into the seat, keeping her knees demurely together. The waitress was attentive as usual and arrived within seconds, failing to notice anxiety I must have been showing - a weedy guy, clammy with sweat, sitting with his beautiful lunch date. Victoria ordered ice water with lemon. I craved a shot of liquor to calm my shattered nerves, but didn't want to look like I'd got no style or I was one of those guys who can't make it through a working day without alcohol. Orange juice, please. As soon as the waitress had left our table, Victoria got back on her feet and stormed across to the salad bar. I followed her as sycophantically as if I were a servant attending royalty. I'd regained enough composure by then to decide that my best strategy for the next few minutes would be silence. I figured she must have been making her mind up what to do, and I wouldn't help myself by getting pushy. We took our seats again. Every once in a while Victoria would stiffen and fix me with that hard stare, but she said nothing. We hadn't exchanged a word since the scene in my office. Even in my misery I couldn't help note it was the longest time I'd spent in her company. Her steel eyes were glorious - the passion of her emotions making her more vivacious. The dress, high about her neck, showed off her shape superbly. I realized she was heavily made up with eyeliner, eyeshadow, foundation, mascara, lipstick. Our drinks arrived. After five minutes of the agonizing silent treatment I could stand it no longer. "Please Victoria, what are you going to do?" I asked glumly. She paused to give me that same hostile but appraising look. "I'm going to eat the lunch you're buying me," she replied icily, and resumed. "I mean, about me..." She paused again, a forkful of salad half way to her mouth, and seemed about to reply, but then was distracted, looking up at something behind me. With the impeccably bad timing of the well-meaning friend, we were interrupted at that moment by Fat Leslie looming over our table. His bulk shadowed us like an eclipse. I knew what would have happened. Leslie had returned to the office. Emma must have reported where I'd gone and eagerly revealed the gossip of the century: that I was out with Victoria de Vere. That's right. Victoria, who never socialized with anyone, was having lunch with Alex, of all people. Leslie would have raced after us as fast as his tree trunk legs would go. "Can I join you guys?" Leslie asked eagerly, already halfway down into my side of our booth. We normally ate together so he wasn't being too out of line assuming it would have been the case. But not just now. In a voice sounding thick with emotion I said, "Sorry Leslie, it's not a good time, things we need to talk about." A range of expressions tracked across Leslie's face. For two such dramatic breeches of the status-quo to have occurred - for me to suddenly be lunching with Victoria, and be sounding upset, clearly something tremendously exciting had happened. For a moment it looks as if he was gonna sit down even though we'd rejected him, but then with obvious reluctance he shuffled away and parked his ass down at the technicians' table. Pleadingly I looked at the beautiful brunette who held the power to ruin my life. The rest of the diner faded out of focus compared to her significance. Dominant and forever unobtainable, at that moment she seemed to me at her most perfect. "How long has this been going on?" Victoria finally asked in her crystal glass soprano, and before I could open my mouth she added, "The truth... I know this much, so you might as well tell me all of it." So feeling terrified, but also with an odd sense of relief that at last this was over, I began to do just that. 5 - Confession "I've been crazy about you since the day you started," I said falteringly. "It seems more like some kind of obsession..." she corrected frostily. "No," I pleaded, "that came later, along with the movies, and it started kinda by accident." "The movies were an accident? You videoed my ass by accident?" she attacked. "How the hell do you start taking secret movies of someone by accident?" "I'm sorry," I stammered, on the verge of tears. "I'm sorry. I knew you didn't date guys at work, and I really wanted some way to stay close to you." I could hear how feeble my excuses sounded myself. I was just digging myself in deeper. "Close to me? Alex - do you know how creepy this is? Do you know what a violation this is?" Her voice was getting louder and louder, and in a slow, deliberate tone, pausing over each word, she said, "You... shot... movies... of... my... ass." I had just enough self-possession to look around anxiously then, but no- one seemed to have heard. "I'm sorry," I pleaded, with my voice breaking. "I just wanted to be part of your life. Please, please, don't get me fired, Victoria." The combination of terror, and shame, and humiliation, got too much for me, and a great wet tear trickled down onto my cheek. Perhaps it was that - a display of genuine contrition, which at last gave her pause. Victoria rubbed the smooth cream of her brow with her slender hand. Suddenly she looked terribly weary, and she closed her eyes for a moment. "What am I supposed to do with you now Alex? Put yourself in my world, seeing as that's what you've been trying to do for weeks apparently. What would you do in my place? Huh? Are there others like me you've filmed, because I'd have a duty to protect those women by telling the cops?" "No!" I quickly gabbled, "It was only with you. And there was nothing but the movies. I swear, you've heard everything now." She sighed, looking at me frustratedly. "You know... The work I've done here at Pharmalens... I thought it was nice here up to now, and this placement has meant me getting a regular pay check for a whole six months. That's pretty good when most of my contracts are only for a couple of weeks. And there was the possibility of it turning into permanent employment if I made a good impression." "That would be great," I tried to flatter "and everybody likes you here. I'm sure they would want you." "Not if I rat you out, they won't want me," she retorted bitterly. "Even though you're totally in the wrong, and I'm blameless. It would still be remembered that I'd caused issues. Nobody likes a squealer, Alex." "You don't have to report me," I begged, "Don't ruin me. I'll do anything to make it up to you." But she cut me off before I finished. "Do you even know what it's like being me?" she said, and there was renewed bitterness in her tone. "You don't want my life. Where do we start? I know. Let me give you one example - the clothes you've filmed me wearing." "To be treated as a professional woman, every single day I have to make an effort to dress nicely, but that means every horny guy around takes it as a personal signal that I'm only presenting myself that way because I want male attention. Dress down in baggy clothes and my employers think I'm a slob. I can't win." "Twenty guys have asked me out from Pharmalens. It was eight at my previous assignment, including one class act who was married, but generously said he'd date me anyway." "And getting dressed - that's before I even get to the job. People think I'm desperate because I'm a temp, and I'll just sell myself like some high class escort. I've been told by executives before that if I want a second contract with a company it would help case to provide them with extracurricular services. In my time with the agency that's happened twice. How do you think I feel being taken for a whore? But your video crap make me feel exploited in a whole new way, Alex." "Sorry," I could only repeat again. "I never meant you any harm, in any way. Quite the opposite. I wish I could help you out." Victoria sighed again, and for the first time I saw her shoulders droop as though she was defeated. It was the last thing I wanted to do, bringing her down, and it almost made me feel worse than the shame of being discovered. "It doesn't matter," she gave in exhaustedly. "I'll be finishing here at the end of the week here anyway." I'd blurted it out before thinking. "You can't go!" She shook her head. "One of the best clients of the temping agency needs someone for two days next week. They're a defense contractor, a company with the stupid name of Marmalade, and they can only take a temp who has been security cleared. I happen to be the only suitable individual on their books. The company are putting a lot of pressure on the agency, and the agency are passing it down the line to me. They're going to blacklist me if I don't take the job." I was aghast. "But you like it here. You can't give it to that kind of bullying. Can't you call in sick from here?" Victoria shook her head. "Temporary contract small print. I call in one day of sick and the agency has to provide someone else to work at Pharmalens. Then that new person has the right stay if they want, replacing me. I know who they'll send, and she'll do just that. So I need to be here every single day, but I also need to be at the defense contractors' as well. So unless you can find a way I can be in two places at once, no, you can't help me Alex." I should have been relieved that Victoria wasn't reporting me, but I wasn't. She was leaving, and that brought only despair. I was busy looking down miserably at the wooden surface of the table, wallowing in self-pity, so I missed the change of expression on her face. It was the extended silence that made me look back up. Victoria de Vere was studying me curiously. "Do you really want to be part of my life?" she asked speculatively, "and earn my forgiveness for taking all of these? There might be a way..." She held up the flash drive as though I needed reminding why forgiveness was required. "Anything!" I stupidly offered. "Well I've just had an idea..." But she didn't tell me immediately. I was made to wait. "Here's how it's going to play. I'm going to call the agency and accept their two days of defense work, and tell the agency Pharmalens don't actually need a replacement for two days." "So you just won't show up, and you'll hope that Pharmalens don't notice your absence?" She looked almost malicious then. "No, Alex, because I'll be here the whole time. You're the one who is going to be absent from Pharmalens. You see - the defense contractor don't know me - they only have a physical description from my file. White female, aged twenty five, slim build, brunette, blue-grey eyes. You want to experience my life? Well you're the one who is going to spend two days at the defense contractor, pretending to be Victoria de Vere." I spluttered out my drink, almost catching Victoria in the spray. "I can't do that!" I said, aghast at the insane suggestion. "Tell me why not," she countered firmly, folding her arms. "Duh! Well... I'm a guy..." "You look quite like a girl," she said, tilting her head speculatively to the side. "You can barely see your Adam's apple, and your blond coloring makes your stubble even less visible. With some clever makeup and the right wig, you could actually pass as rather pretty. Certainly they'd assume you were female from birth, rather than trans-female." "No! Absolutely not!" I insisted, but she pressed on. "Yes, Alex. We're close enough in age and we have the same color eyes. Cover your blond hair with a brunette wig and you'll match the description in my file. We have the same build and we're almost the same height." "I'd never get away with it!" I insisted. "What about the work there? I'm not trained as a temp." "It's easy. Admin stuff. You take notes. Answer the phone. Filing. Look pretty. Go where they tell you to go." I returned to my main concern. "They'll see straight away I'm a guy." But Victoria was persistent, now locked on like a guided missile to an idea that somehow she couldn't see was impossible. "You'll be okay. Just understand the secret of being a woman is that it's all in the clothes and the presentation. Dress right, and people form their impressions from that. They will see what they expect to see." "You're wrong. It would be a disaster," I moaned. "Look at me, Alex," she snapped, getting impatient with me. "You've been watching me enough to form an impression. Tell me what kind of person you think I am." I floundered at this abrupt change in direction. "Be truthful. I promise not to be offended." Sophisticated? Beautiful? Perfect? Frigid? But of course I was only going to be complimentary. "Well... I answered cautiously, "You seem classy, so I guess you come from one of America's Ivy League families. You dress exceptionally well - smart and sexy, making the most of what you've got without giving the impression you're easy." After her outburst about the clothes, I'd felt it was important to emphasize that last point. Beginning to feel emboldened I elaborated, "You're a little standoffish around the guys, but only in the way that all beautiful girls have to put up barriers to avoid unwanted attention. I'd guess you're conservative - not the kind of girl to do drugs or get herself on the wrong side of the law." She smiled, as though I'd just sprung her trap. "So to sum up, you're saying I'm middle or upper-class, conventional, pretty? The kind of all-American girl who becomes prom queen, then meets a nice guy in college and settles down to a respectable life with three kids?" "That's not how I'd put it," I replied carefully, "when to me you're exceptional, but I guess..." But before I could finish, Victoria de Vere had reached up with her slim hand to her forehead, threading her fingers into the strands of her dark hair. She tugged backwards firmly, and her whole mane of hair seemed to shift on her skull. What tumbled out from underneath was almost jet black except where she'd streaked with artificial neon green. She kept her true hair much shorter than the brunette wig, with the ends not quite long enough to brush her shoulders. Victoria looked at me, flushed and defiant as though she'd just stripped in front of me. "Look at me now. This is the real me, Alex. When I get home at night I can't wait to put the stud back in my nose and the rings in my ears. One reason I always wear long sleeves is because I have a tattoo on my upper arm." She tapped the spot where you'd normally get a BCG shot. My jaw was hanging open as I took in the transformed woman. Others were watching too. The group on the next table who also work for Pharmalens had stopped their conversation. This revelation was going to go round the company like wildfire. Despite the deep shit I was in with her, I couldn't help reverentially saying, "I think I love you even more." Victoria chose to ignore this. Already she was carefully positioning the wig back on her head, tucking the strands away. Here efforts weren't perfect, but would conceal the lime strands until she got to the bathroom. "The point I'm making is, Alex - it's all about the presentation. If I make you up as the female temp they're expecting, all they'll see is Victoria de Vere. It's just the same as the way everyone here sees the woman I want them to see." After that declaration she resumed eating her salad, picking up the fork as casually as if nothing happened. It had gone quiet in the diner when she'd unveiled her hair, like when a gunman bursts in the saloon during a Western. But with revelation over, the tension dropped and a buzz of conversation resumed. "You know..." I said glowing with unexpected admiration, "the 'you' that's underneath - seems more awesome than the plastic Victoria that comes into the office. Can't you let down your guard and come in as your real self?" She frowned, looking at me like I was dumb. "You're a guy and you won't get the problem. Our culture judges women by their appearance," was her answer. "Professional women do not have green hair. There's an office Victoria, and a different one at the weekend." I still didn't think for a moment we'd get away with it, but I desperately wanted to spend longer inside her defensive walls and see more of the human being I'd just glimpsed. I reasoned that if I pretended to go along with her scheme, I'd get to be with Victoria and do my best to change her mind before the fateful day arrived. It was the prospect of more time in her presence which resolved me. "If I try, will you forgive me?" I asked hesitantly. She looked at me witheringly. "I won't forgive you, but I won't turn you in. Just no more of that creepo crap, okay?" Steeling myself, I jumped. "Then I'll help you," I stated determinedly. "I don't think this is gonna work for a second, but I'll try. I'll take a couple of days leave, and I'll spend two days as a... female secretary at that place - Marmalade. Where do I start?" Victoria looked at me critically. "I'm guessing that as you're the kind of guy who would film that voyeur stuff, you don't have a female role model around who is going to show you how to dress up and do your makeup? You don't have a girlfriend, right?" I shook my head, humiliated. "So although you, Alex, are the person I least want to spend time with, but you're gonna need help with the prep. And you'll need a woman to choose you some clothes." She took one of the Anoushka's pens they put at the end of each table, and decisively started writing something on a paper napkin. Her handwriting was feminine, neat but with swirling loops. "Here's my cell number, and this is the address of my apartment," she said, and then looked at me critically. "But then you probably know where it is, already?" "No," I shamefully correct. "I've never followed you." She frowned, not entirely believing me. "Come over this evening and we'll start shopping for what you need. Bring a credit card - this is going to get expensive for you." It was hard to keep up my contrite expression when Victoria de Vere handed me her address. From my life going down in flames less than an hour ago, I had become the first person at Pharmalens to see beyond the professional Victoria. But I wasn't off the hook in any way. She saw the change in my mood and snapped, "Don't get weird on me, Alex. This doesn't mean anything. I'm only doing this because I don't want you to fail when it's my name going down with you." My smile started to break through all the same. "And if you want to be a part of a girl's life," she added sternly, "I suggest next time you offer to buy her a coffee first." 6 - Apartment. The sun was nearly setting behind the plain, whitewashed building where Victoria de Vere lived. In the evening air I could smell lavender. It must have been growing close by. I had wanted to bring her flowers, a continued apology, but figured that anything which could be interpreted romantically would have been "weird" precisely the way she didn't want. So even though I didn't really drink I'd searched out the classiest wine they had in the store, and that was all I carried with me. A motorbike went past on the highway, the rumble of engine and exhaust loud. This wasn't a great neighborhood but it wasn't the worst. White collar workers in their first jobs, blue collar workers in decent jobs, and those of higher status who had fallen on harder times. After making my way up the concrete stairs, I rang the bell of her apartment. It was the alternate Victoria de Vere who answered the door, the version with her long wig gone and the shoulder-length truth, streaked with its lime highlights, blatantly displayed. I'd not seen her outside office dress before so I stared at the even greater transformation, having to take a moment to absorb what was before me. In Victoria's nose was a small silver stud, glinting with diamond. She wore a loose grey sweat top, the kind of thing people get from their college and never discard, even when it falls apart. It concealed her figure, but looked comfortable. Below the waist she wore denim high cut pants - "Daisy Dukes" I've sometimes heard them called. Under those were figure-hugging pantyhose of a dark opaque material. The combination meant I could see more of the shape of her legs and hips than I ever did at work, but she had less skin on show. Revealing but concealing. Very Victoria. She wore no shoes. On her wrists were a series of silver bangles that jingled with each movement she made. "What?" she said, reacting defensively to my observation, and it returned me to my senses. "I brought you some wine," I said unnecessarily, offering the bottle. "You'd better come in then," she said, taking the gift and stepping aside to let me in the door. Victoria's apartment wasn't large, but it was reasonably furnished - tasteful for a limited budget. A short entrance corridor led to the living room which looked impersonal - there was little sign of individuality and if things were less battered it could have passed for a hotel suite. I'd been hoping she was home alone, but waiting in the living room was the guy I'd heard she lived with. Six foot tall and built like a quarterback, he was handsome and looked as though he could handle himself. This guy could have been a blond GI Joe, and he was exactly the caliber of man whom I'd expected to win Victoria as a girlfriend. Before I had time to prepare that mountain strode right for me and with a push of his heavy paws flung me back against the wall, which I hit with a crash. Still closing in on me, I found myself pinned by his weight as he pressed his forearm into my throat. "Is this the jerk you caught filming you?" Rambo was so angry his face was already turning red. It wasn't so easy to speak with my windpipe being crushed, but desperate to avoid him beating the shit of me I croaked, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry." To my shame it took a girl to save me. "Leave him be, Tommy," shouted Victoria, who had moved alongside us and was trying to pull away the steel girder of his arm using only her porcelain hands. "Let me deal with it my way." At a fraction of his bulk, she should have made no headway separating us, but the boyfriend, Tommy, relented and stepped back anyway. Released to gravity I slid down to end slumped against the base of the wall. Frightened, I didn't dare push myself back up onto my feet. Victoria had stepped in for me already, so I felt even more ashamed when some of the fury I deserved was redirected at her. "Most people report psycho stalkers to the cops, Vic," he shouted at her. "Only you would invite yours over for some supper and a movie. Why do you have to make friends with all the crazies?" I pushed aside the distracting thought of "Vic"? People call her "Vic"? I had to intervene, but all I could come up with was repeating, "I'm sorry!" Victoria had to save me a second time. "He's helping me out, to try and make up for it, cut the guy a break," she retorted, her voice growing heated as well as she pushed the giant in the brick wall of his chest. "Don't make me pissed off with you as well." That seemed to do the trick, for Tommy's anger seemed to dissipate as suddenly as when he'd gone for me. "Sorry, Vic," he told her, shoulders slumping as he turned to the brunette with unexpected humility. "Of course you can fight your battles the way you want. It's totally not my place to interfere." "It's not..." she confirmed with her hostility still present. But Tommy wasn't completely defeated yet. He turned back to me, looming as he leaning down to stab a chunky finger into my chest. "I can't stop you two doing this, but I'm warning you - blond Peewee Herman - you hurt one hair on her head, and by 'hurt' I mean any form of mental distress as well as physical harm, and I swear to you I'll find out where you live and I'll break your ass." "Yes, Sir," I said to him in the most placatory tone I could manage holding up my hands in surrender. "You're pathetic," was Tommy's next shot to me, but thankfully it was a parting one, for after that he stamped from the room down a corridor leading deeper into the apartment. The silence in the living room was abrupt. Tension hung in the air. "Wine, I think," Victoria said, sounding not dissatisfied at the way things had gone. "This way." I humbly followed through a doorway and into a small but functional kitchen. The work surfaces in here were stacked with cooking paraphernalia - spices, fresh herbs growing in pots, jars of oil, implements, a blender, and a gas hob. The room smelt beautiful, like a health-food store. Someone was into their cooking. While Victoria took some curved wine glasses from a cupboard and a corkscrew from a drawer, I tried to ease the atmosphere. "Your boyfriend is pissed with me," I said to her apologetically, "and I totally deserve it. I hope I've not caused problems between you." "He's not my boyfriend," she corrected me coolly. "Just a buddy sharing the apartment." "He likes you though." It was a personal com