The Hippolyta Project

Special thanks to DawnJ for her invaluable help editing this story.

***

I remember thinking she looked fierce. They were making her go through the usual rite of passage at work, trailing behind her manager Janet, going from office to office and cube to cube to be introduced to every single person in the company.

It's really a dumb practice, but every new hire is brought around. It's not humanly possible to remember so many new people introduced in rapid fire succession, and they're already overwhelmed with loads of HR bullshit, so it's of no value to the newbie. And like most people, I don't really care unless the newbie is going to be working on my product, or was hired by one of my work friends, or sitting near me at the office.

Janet was not my friend, and never has been. And most vice presidents can't remember everyone's name, anyway, so that leads to the awkward moment when someone like Janet fumbles around trying to remember who I am in the first place, so they can properly introduce me and explain what I do. I'm in content marketing - it's where journalists go to make a living.

But this girl, Fiona, had something memorable. Several things, actually. It was her eyes, to start, stormy blue-grey eyes that were as dark as the North Atlantic. I sat in my office and saw Janet stopping at each cubicle outside and giving the little speech she had practiced about how excited she was to be adding another writer to her staff, and whatever details she remembered about Fiona's previous experience. So I waited for my turn in the tour to be polite, meet the newbie and get back to work.

Then they came to my doorway. Janet stepped through, but Fiona lingered behind her at the door frame. I remember sitting up a little straighter when I turned and looked at her eyes. Janet launched into her comments, but the new hire's eyes met mine and locked on.

She saw my mix of amusement, frustration and pity at the ritual introduction. Clear as day, her eyes said, "I know, right? It's way worse from my end."

She mostly held my gaze, but I studied the rest of her as best I could without giving the her an obvious once-over in front of her boss. She was different. She dressed sensibly, but the nose ring and jet black hair were just toeing the acceptable line of edginess of our fairly laid back office. Her blouse wasn't low cut; she wasn't busty. But it betrayed ink at her wrists and neck. She was lean; her shapely legs were clad in knee-high stockings. Fiona wore her work-appropriate skirt in a way that suggested she wished it was a foot shorter, but that it would do for 10 a.m.

She wasn't beautiful. Her strong jaw and chin jutted out into space like a stark declaration, and her sharp cheekbones gave her an angular look.

But she held her shoulders high. Her hair was cool. She stood with confidence, and she complimented our locked gaze with a half smile that showed she could play the game but recognized it as just that.

Most of our employees her age are slack-jawed idiots. When I was her age I was a slack-jawed idiot. But sharp intelligence and uncommon wisdom - and raw sex appeal - crackled off her like a static discharge looking for a place to leap.

Janet finished her pre-rehearsed introduction. Fiona said something like, "hi." There might have been more to it; I remember her voice was a ridiculously melodious husky contralto, surprising from her small frame. I stood up and shook Fiona's hand. That static leapt. Then she and Janet turned and left my office, onto the next row of cubicles and she steeled herself for more pointless introductions. I sat back down a little too quickly. The phone rang and I answered it.

***

That first meeting was somewhere between intriguing and disconcerting. It's not really natural for a young woman - a girl, actually - to have that kind of poise and self-possession. She knocked around inside my brain for the rest of the day, and in the fog of the commute home I thought about her demeanor. I listened to sports talk radio but didn't hear any of it. I wondered if she was actually a good writer. I assumed she was good in bed and I thought about that some.

I went home and fucked my live-in girlfriend before dinner.

I swept in through the door and into the kitchen where she was reading something on her iPad and drinking a glass of red wine. She was facing the counter when I strode in behind her and pinned her with my large frame. I circled her waist with my arms and bent to kiss the spot on her freckled neck that got her all gooey, and on cue she melted and pressed her round bottom into me. I slowly moved my hands up, caressing her tenderly but intently. I brought my hands to her large, full breasts and squeezed. She put down the wine glass and her iPad and gripped the granite counter to steady herself.

I kissed up her neck, and she tilted her head back so our lips could meet. Hers parted, and our tongues danced. I tasted the wine on her lips, and it was good.

I loosened my hold on her voluptuous breasts, and gripped her shirt where it strained in between them. I pressed my lips firmly into hers, and with a firm tug, I tore her blouse off. Buttons flew and clattered against the countertop. She gasped into my mouth.

I broke our embrace and forcefully tugged the torn cloth off her shoulders, and her bra-clad breasts heaved as she started to pant. The excitement made her shiver; I think it was November, so it could have been the cold air. I reached up and grabbed a handful of her sandy brown hair, forcing her to bring her lips back to mine for a kiss. I attacked that spot on her neck. She thrust her ass into me and spread her legs a little.

"Welcome home," she breathed, barely above a whisper.

Fiona was completely forgotten. The moment I set eyes on Dagne, she was the only thing in my mind. But I had been energized somehow by the earlier encounter and that energy brought a vigor that had been missing in our sex life.

That's hindsight. In the moment, Dagne's curvy Irish body was intensely in focus. I bit her neck firmly and then dropped to my knees behind her. She was still wearing her business suit skirt. I roughly pulled it up to her waist, exposing the globes of her glorious, round ass.

I like women whose thighs touch. Dagne's amazing thick rear was bisected by a thong; she flexed her ass when I pushed the grey suit fabric up to her waist to reveal her barely-there underwear. I placed my hands on each cheek and pulled them apart. She stood on the balls of her feet and bowed her legs to give me access to her sweet spot.

I dove in. I used my tongue to pluck the purple thread from inside her lower lips. Pushing it aside, I craned my neck underneath her and assaulted her with my tongue. She shuddered. She was completely soaked, and the juices covered my bearded face as I voraciously lapped at her sex. She growled and gasped, short of breath.

"Fuck me," she groaned.

I stood, unbuckled my belt, dropped my pants and boxer briefs, and stepped out of them. My cock sprang out, hard as an iron rod and throbbing with anticipation. I grabbed the purple thong and pulled hard. It snapped, she gasped again and I tossed it away. I bent my knees and rubbed my cock head along her lips, slowly working it up and down, covering myself in her juice. She started to shake.

"You asshole, stop fucking around and fuck me!" she whined. She began to grind her ass into me urgently. I pulled my own shirt off.

I gave her what she wanted. She started to push back against me, and aimed my cock to her soaking slit. I pushed inside, thrust hard into her, and moved my hands back to her breasts. Her large tits were barely contained by a front-clasp bra; I worked the latch and they sprang free. I roughly grabbed them and started pumping into her.

She tightened her grip on the counter; I returned one of my hands to her hair and snarled my fingers in the tresses. I pulled sharply, and her back arched. The other I used to maul her heavy breast and tweak its nipple.

I fucked her deep and hard. I think I grunted a lot. She certainly was vocal, moaning and squealing as the head of my hard cock scraped along her insides, nicking her g-spot over and over. My hips slapped on her round ass.

She came quickly and intensely. I think my unexpected assault caught her vulnerable and off-guard. She was sopping wet and I was really fucking her roughly. When her pussy spasmed the first time, I could feel it trying to draw the cum out of me. Instead I pulled harder on her hair and upped my pace. I started to bang the tip of my thick cock into her cervix, something that she usually found painful. Maybe it was painful then too, but it seemed to drive her wild.

Her legs shook, and then she was fucking me back as hard as she could. She let out a high-pitched, long moan. I took my hand from her breast and moved it to her throat. She growled in lust and I squeezed. She came again when I choked her.

Looking back, this was the best sex we had ever had. She must have craved this strong hand all along; most of the time I was a gentle, giving lover. I spent hours between her legs, pampering her sex with my tongue, fingers and a few toys, constantly making her cum that way. But that night I took her and used her. I'm pretty sure I said nothing before or during our romp.

When I came, I let out a primal growl. I pumped into her at the same unrelenting pace, cum boiling out of me and coating her insides. I ended with a hard bite on her neck, right in that special spot, and she came for the last time. I wrapped both arms around her and we sagged onto the counter, completely out of breath. We kissed passionately for a while, and eventually cleaned up.

Then I made her chicken, rice and broccoli. We finished that bottle of good red wine.

***

It wasn't long after that Dagne and I had the talk. She initiated it, but I had felt it coming. We weren't going to make it, so it was time to give it up. She moved out, and I couldn't afford our place on my own so I did too. I wasn't too mad, and we somehow stayed friends. We had breakup sex, which was good, and fucked a few times afterwards, which was fine. She met somebody else quickly. I didn't.

Dagne had made all the money. Writers don't make much. I moved back to the old somewhat dodgy neighborhood filled with artists and students. It was familiar, but shitty. Most of my friends had moved away like I had, and I had rather liked being downtown with the snobs. I was constantly reminded why I moved out in the first place. Kids are dumb, and artists are self-important.

I rented a room in a house with three other guys from Craigslist. When you're looking for cheap, it's not like roommates come with references. Considering that, I did pretty well. None were completely insane. They were messy, but good people. We very occasionally smoked weed and played video games together like it was college.

The apartment itself was shit; my window was about fifty yards from the interstate and the commuter rail that ran along side. The house shook at regular intervals when the train went by, and eventually I got somewhat used to the constant roar of traffic traveling at 80 miles-an-hour.

It wasn't a good place to write. With no girlfriend to come home to, I had thrown myself into work. I spent long hours in my little office developing our publication, and wrote my own shit on the weekends at coffee shops and pubs. That stuff tended to be a little dark.

I jerked off a fair amount; my shitty apartment worked just fine for that. I read a lot of erotica - I hate fake tits and asshole male porn actors that mistreat the actresses, so that severely limits the free video that interests me. At that point I was pretty broke, so good porn wasn't in the budget.

I tried to go to my old haunts and pick up women. I'd love to say my heart wasn't really in it, but that's a lie. I just got old and out of practice. I went for the brooding, scarred, tortured soul thing. The students clearly weren't into complexity, and there were always more tortured artists. Eventually I figured out I needed a new angle, but I didn't know what that was. I jerked off some more.

***

That spring my company bought some small startup in England. They needed a writer to take over their foundering information product and bring it into the fold. I volunteered. It was a promotion and a raise; I was going to get a junior writer to work underneath me. It was a shit load of travel, but it wasn't like I was doing much outside of work.

Right around the same time, Janet got fired. It turns out she wasn't particularly good at what she did, whatever that was. They asked me if I wanted Fiona, who was good.

I really did.

We flew over to London to meet the rest of the new team. I didn't have much time to brief her before we went. We were both wrapping up old projects. We just exchanged emails and did a quick face-to-face or two. She seemed excited by the prospect of the job but reserved. It was hard to tell what she was thinking, but she handled her work proficiently. She constantly seemed to be evaluating something - me, the job, the situation. I figured she just had an analytical mind.

We met our new colleagues, and I explained the vision I had for our blog, the benefits of well-written content and how it would draw attention to the rest of the products. They didn't really understand it at first.

British stoicism can be infuriating. It seems to take hours for them to work up to a single point. No one ever says what they actually mean, or asks for what they want, or objects outright when they disagree. Somehow, that's all impolite and simply not done. So getting through our planning meetings was like wading into knee-high mud. All my energy was spent mucking through. I had dinner with the team some, which was pleasant enough, alone some, which I was getting quite proficient at, and went to bed early every night.

It felt like Fiona didn't say a thing for the entire week we were there. She listened to the Brits, took notes about the new business, communicated with nods, sighs to denote annoyance or resignation (usually at my expense), and husky laughs when appropriate. Every once and a while she asked a question. The Brits hemmed and hawed. I got more annoyed.

Our last night in England we were booked into a low budget chain hotel near Heathrow, since our flight was early the next morning. It was in that strip of hotels where the closer to the airport, the nicer they are. We weren't close. At all.

We checked in, and our rooms happened to be across the hall from each other. At our doorways I advised Fiona not to leave the hotel after dark. She was a slight little thing and a long way from home, I thought, but didn't say that out loud. She just looked at me.

I asked her if she wanted to join me for dinner. "Probably not," she said.

Probably not. That felt like a strange answer to the question.

I shrugged, and wished her a good evening. I stashed my suitcases in my room and headed out to an Indian restaurant I had seen just down the road on the way in, nestled between a betting parlor and whatever a bodega is called in England. I brought my book. I don't remember what it was I was reading.

The restaurant actually turned out to be more of a bar that served Indian food. There were lots of locals, many of whom were Indian, which is always a promising sign in an ethnic food joint. There were a few pasty English toughs standing around the bar watching Tottenham Hotspurs completely outclass some shitty European team. I didn't recognize the name. They wore yellow jerseys, I think.

It was my kind of place.

I sat down at a table near the front and had a few Kronenbergs. The lamb madras I ordered was the real deal.

I opened my book and sipped at my beer. The waiter diligently refilled it when needed. I made it through a few chapters. The waiter appeared carrying the black bill holder. I didn't remember asking for the check. Confused, I opened it and read the note inside: "You aren't very bright."

This was inarguably accurate. Someone had found me out, and dispatched me a bolt of truth printed on a cocktail napkin. It was written in a neat hand with what appeared to be fire-engine red lipstick.

I looked up at the waiter. It wasn't his shade. He shrugged and gestured over to the bar.

Standing there was Fiona dressed in full battle attire: a high-collared black leather jacket that ended just below her rib cage, a tight white button-down dress shirt mostly unbuttoned to show her tattooed lower neck and high breastbone, a very short red plaid skirt, thigh highs, and chunky ankle Doc Martin boots, also red. Turns out, it was her shade.

She was expertly ignoring the toughs just across the bar, who were inexpertly ogling her, mouths agape.

I had the sense she knew she had captured my attention, but she was giving me a moment to take it all in before turning slightly and glancing over her shoulder at me. She had the full kit on, dark eye makeup and long lashes standing out starkly against her pale white skin, and the recently informative lipstick calling attention to plump and pouty lips that I hadn't yet appropriately admired. She appeared annoyed.

My brain melted. The slag was a burst of hormones dumped into my system that might have killed someone older or infirm. I swallowed hard, forcing my pounding heart back into my chest, and then decided to begin breathing again. I started with a long, slow inhalation and followed with a long slow exhalation.

I put my bookmark back into my book, and slowly set it on the table. Then I gestured to the empty chair across from me.

She strutted across the room in a manner that just ... dazzled. It was sexual radiance via motion. Either the bar got very quiet or the roaring in my ears drowned out all other noise. Maybe both.

She settled into the seat, looked up at the waiter who'd faded out of existence for a while, and said, "I'll have whatever he's drinking."

I looked up at him. He looked down at me. I'll take the memory of the look on his face - "I don't know you, mate, but I know you've done precisely nothing to deserve this" - to my grave.

"Two Kronenbergs, please," I said.

He faded out of existence again.

"Hi," she said.

"Hi," I said.

"This place is kind of a dump," she said. "Was the food any good?"

"Yes, actually, it was."

Two Kronenbergs appeared somehow.

"You look nice," I said.

"Really?" she said. "Damnit. That's totally not what I was going for."

She took a sip of beer. Not a dainty sip, or a sloppy chug. The perfect sip. She looked at me over the top of the tall, slender glass. Those stormy blue eyes ... did something enthralling. She put the glass down stained with that red lipstick.

It occurred to me, somehow, she was the only girl - woman - in the whole place.

"I see you weren't keen on my advice," I said.

"It was bad advice."

"We'll see," I said.

That hung there for a moment. I took a sip from my beer.

"I'd like to show you a project I'm working on outside of work called the Hippolyta Project," she said.

The Hippolyta Project. That sounded distantly familiar.

"Shakespearean tradition, or Greek?" I asked.

Fiona blinked twice. Perhaps she was surprised that question came from someone whose brightness was no longer in question. Perhaps she had something in her eye.

"Shakespearean," she said.

"Oh good," I said. "She dies in almost all the Greek myths."

"Yes, I know. In battle."

"This isn't some kind of martial arts display, is it?" I said.

She took another perfect sip, eyes piercing over the glass.

"Not exactly," she said.

I'm dim, but I caught the message: don't fuck this up. This was important.

"I'd love to see your work and the project," I said.