Beth stifled another yawn, covering her mouth with one hand and trying to look casual. The instructor who was currently at the front of the featureless room droned on, basically just reading the subsections of a unit in his training curriculum. She'd been in this room all day, and there were just a few minutes left before they were scheduled to break for the night.
At the front of the room was an old wooden monster of a desk with neat stacks of paper spaced across the front of it's polished mahogany surface. As they had filed in that morning, middle-management office workers getting their annual refresher on what the company deemed "good leadership", each of them knew the day was going to suck. The company had converted a storage room in the basement of the old office building to create a training room. Beth worked on the 5th floor, but there were 7 floors total; about 17 other employees were in the class.
She'd been with the company for just over a year now, but this was her first time even being in the basement. It was roomy down here - but dim. The fluorescent lights were old and some took a while to warm up, flickering as the light increased to a steady glow.
There were, at least, backup fire safety lights in every room down here. The air was cool, though, and a little damp against her skin. She'd worn a cardigan, knowing it might be the coldest part of the building, and she was glad to have it. It hadn't helped her nipples though, as the room's dungeon-like atmosphere made them harden early in the day, and they still were visible through her shirt. Business casual was the policy, so of course she was in a thin blouse and a grey knee-length (maybe just a wee bit shorter) pencil skirt. Tomorrow she would be sure to wear something warmer.
This particular class was being taught by a team of two instructors - one of them was a large man who seemed like he might actually be trying to put them to sleep. His shoulders and arms were visibly muscular even in the corporate logo polo shirt he wore. He had a neatly trimmed beard and a generally dull demeanor throughout the day's lessons.
His partner was also well built, but he smiled a lot more. At least, he smiled at Beth. He also had a nice full beard, and wore his curly hair in a short ponytail.
By the time the group took their scheduled lunch break, in the late morning, Beth had realized that whenever she looked at him he was looking back. He taught the portion right after lunch, and somehow she managed to listen the entire time. Then a majority of the participants voted to take a cigarette break and the instructors allowed it; she took the opportunity to use the ladies room. Beth didn't smoke.
Unfortunately, she realized that her cell phone hadn't gotten any reception in the training room all day. As soon as she came up the steps to the bathrooms on the first floor, her phone went off like a worker droid. Her mother, her ex boyfriend, several Facebook group notifications all beeped and tweeted at her. She quickly took care of her bathroom needs and then settled onto a bench to check her phone for a while. Of course, that turned into 20 minutes and she missed some of the slides as the class had already resumed by the time she got back.
Now she sat in the back of the classroom, arms crossed and eyes held open only by sheer force of will, waiting for class to end. She'd go up and ask her favorite instructor if she could see the slides she missed, just to fill in the space in her notes. Beth took notes constantly - writing things down helped her to remember them better. There was a required final exam tomorrow afternoon for this 2-day training, and she was planning on getting a score of 100%.
Finally, at two minutes past, she heard the loud creaks and groans of chairs being pushed back and bags being gathered. The louder participants called out to one another across the room about what they were doing for dinner. Beth quietly approached the front of the room where the boring man was carefully piling the individual stacks into one collated stack at the corner of the desk. He said something to his partner instructor, and then walked past Beth toward the door. He nodded at her and smiled awkwardly just before leaving the room.
"Um... I was wondering if I could review a slide I missed before you shut it down?" Beth stood at the end of the desk where the trainer sat, pulling her sweater closed and trying not to shift her weight nervously. It really was ridiculous how cold they had it down here. Her instructor seemed completely at ease with the temperature, though.
He smiled again, and began clicking backward through the slide deck until she told him to stop. Quickly, she moved around to the front of the desk to see the screen better. She placed her notebook on the desktop and had to bend over halfway just to write in it. Her cheeks flushed as she realized how this must look, but she was already writing and she figured it was best to get it done. The instructor sat completely still as she wrote and said nothing, but when she finished scribbling he cleared his throat.
She raised her eyes to find him not making eye contact this time; he was staring straight at her tits. Slowly and deliberately, he raised his eyes and his smile took on an edge it hadn't had before. The room felt very large and empty all of a sudden, and Beth stood up in a graceful motion - all things considered. She smiled brightly, and looked over the bullet points she had written down.
