"What Happens in Spain..."
Chapter 1.
Size is For Pleasure
"Irene! El jefe quiere verte!" Her co-worker, Miguel, had poked his head over the top of the cubicle to look in on Irene as he said this.
"The Boss wants to see Me?" Irene answered in surprise. Getting a call to see the boss wasn't something that had happened to her but perhaps twice in ten years at the company. Usually, getting a call to see the boss was either good news or bad news, more often bad than good. "Did he say what for?"
"No idea. He just told me to tell you he wanted to see you."
Immediately butterflies filled her stomach as she stood, obediently locking her computer screen as she did, cognizant of the confidential information that regularly filled her screen. Exactly one of the reasons that she had one of the few offices that was situated to prevent someone from looking over her shoulder. The curtains were open in his office as she approached, easing her mind that this was something bad. Whether he knew it or not, everyone in the office knew when you got a call and his curtains were closed, it wasn't good news.
"Come on in, Irene. Shut the door why don't you."
Shit. Shut the door, but the curtains were open. Definitely mixed messages.
"No worries, Irene," Carlos said with his fake smile, waving at the chair by his desk, "have a seat, you're not in trouble. I'd swear, the way some things are overheard around here, my office has a loudspeaker to the rest of the world." He laughed, and Irene grinned, a wave of relief running through her mind.
Leaning back in his chair, clasping his hands and steepleing his fingers, she recognized the body language that said, "I'm the boss." She didn't understand the need for this, or the mixed messages he was giving. It didn't surprise her though - it was part of the reason that he was a mediocre boss, at best. She'd realized for quite some time that she was caught in the bureaucratic nightmare that was her company which therefore mandated change happened slowly - but it didn't keep her from dreaming that someday she'd be in that chair. She could certainly do the job better than he did.
"So, how are things going with you?" As always, he asked a question without giving a background - leaving her questioning what his question really was.
"In what way, Carlos? With work? With the new program...?"
"In general, with everything."
"Good, I guess. The new program is finally starting to work better. You know I've turned in 5 complaints on it, bugs that allowed unauthorized access, confidential information that wasn't being kept confidential and the like."
"I know. That's part of why you're here. What about personal? Everything going well with Oscar?"
Irene was more than a little surprised at this question, although she thought everything was going well with her husband, nothing more than an occasional spat just like any couple had, it had nothing to do with her work. Whether her personal relationship with her husband was fantastic, or on the rocks, was really none of his business... "Fine, I guess."
"The reason I ask is, for something upcoming at work." He paused, obviously letting her stew over his words. "Your reports," he began again, "and work, have caught some attention in corporate." The way he said it, it didn't sound positive but, somehow, she knew he was purposely making it sound negative. Carlos could definitely be a Prick - with a Capital P. She held her head high, knowing she'd done things right, not wrong, and stared him in the eye.
Unable to cow her, he broke contact first, looking down at the paper on his desk. She had to wonder if the paper actually said anything, or whether it was just his prop. "What do you think your husband would say about you being gone for most of a month?"
This caught her by surprise, traveling had never been a part of her job. Riding a computer screen, the only place she'd ever gone was to Madrid for a week-long training when she'd first started, but that was nearly 11 years before.
"What do you mean by "Gone" for most of a month?" She finally asked, "What does that mean?"
In typical Carlos fashion, he dragged out a simple answer, installing himself as the primary reason for this occurring, making himself look more important than the minor official that he was. The reality was almost immediately clear, between the 5 fatal flaws that she'd found and reported, and multiple other flaws reported from other offices, the company had decided that the current program was unsafe and had decided to completely replace it
"You and a few others from outside the country have been selected by upper management to be the first to be trained on a totally new program. You'll need to go to Madrid for training. There are several others coming in from other locations around the world, and you'll all spend a week in the training center. After the first week there, you and all the others will be coming back here for a second week, and then finally, you'll all be going to Palo Alto in California for two weeks." He stopped, letting her digest what he'd said. "Have you ever been to California?" She shook her head no. "If you agree, you'll be gone 3 of the next 4 weeks."
Irene nodded in understanding, lying with her nodding head. Why her? What was so all-fired important that she was elected to go? What would happen when she came back, would she be expected to train all her co-workers on what she'd learned? "That's all? When the four weeks are done, I'll come back to Barcelona? Will I be expected to train others, or do a different job, or what?"
"I don't know. I wasn't privy to that information." She could tell it really irritated him that he wasn't important enough to be told what was happening. With Carlos, being able to Lord "anything" over someone else was his sole source of power, and he did love power.
Irene nodded, thinking about the logistics. Something about this, primarily that Carlos really didn't know, made it seem an absolute must for her career. She sensed this was more than just a training.
"I'll have to check with Oscar, but I don't think we've got anything planned that can't be rearranged for a month or so." Carlos nodded as if passing judgement. "When do I need to decide?"
"Take it home, check with Oscar. If you don't think you can do it, we'll pass it back up to management. I imagine they'll want someone from here, maybe me. Who knows? That will be their decision." She almost smiled, his two simple words of "maybe me" sticking out of everything he'd said like a carrot nose on a snow man. The reality is, in his self-centered little world, he was irritated that he hadn't been asked to do this training which appeared to her, on initially hearing it, to be a huge career stepping stone. Although she hadn't heard anything about what it was yet, there were certain times in her career that simple decisions seemed to have much more importance than most gave them credit for - and her instincts said this was one. She'd learned to trust her instincts.
~
She waited to say anything to Oscar until after they'd made love that night. After nearly 18 years of marriage and two kids, making love wasn't something that happened very often anymore; on the average of every couple of weeks. She'd made the conscious decision that she'd let him do his thing again tonight, even though they'd made love once a few days earlier, over the weekend. She considered making love more of her duty to him than something she really desired. Making love was more of a nuisance, letting him paw at her breasts, paw at her pussy, finally rolling over and sticking his little cock in her, and after a short time reaching completion, leaving her with a sticky mess to go wash away. He just never seemed to get it, no matter what she said or did. She admitted to herself that she didn't think he was a very good lover, but not from any experience elsewhere. Being a good catholic girl, she'd been worried about their wedding date, hoping against all odds that she didn't have a "premature" baby six or seven months after they were wed. As it was, she didn't get pregnant until almost a year later, but she'd succumbed to Oscar's wishes and they had fucked virtually every time they were together for the last few months after she'd agreed to marry him.
She hadn't gotten her friend and really learned to enjoy herself until a couple of years later, after their first daughter was born. A weekend camping trip to the beach with their good friends Maria and Albert became an eye-opener, when the campground, unknown to any of them before hand, turned out to be between a normal and a nudist beach. The majority of the campers were naturists, and with most of the neighbors in the campground being unabashedly naked and the nude beach closer and easier to reach than the textile one, they had just gone with the easy choice. She'd just as soon have gone to the textile side, but Oscar and Albert had both been eager to go nude, and they did almost immediately. Maria seemed very much like her however, and although they both went topless on the beach, and Maria did some back at the camp, they'd both kept their bikini bottoms on. Albert became the first man she'd ever seen naked - besides her husband. She saw Albert discretely checking out her tits several times during the day, just as she also saw Oscar checking out Maria's.
Even though she was always an early riser, she knew Albert and Maria were up even before she got up. Oscar had wanted to make love the night before, but she'd turned him down - not with Albert and Maria so close where they could hear them. Now as she was pulling on her shirt and shorts, quietly so as not to awaken Oscar, she overheard their voices.
"Not here!
" she heard Maria whisper, and a giggle, "
Bad boy! Somebody might see us.
"
"
There's nobody around, and I'm watching. I'll let you know if anyone is coming. Suck me
!" She heard nothing more for a few moments, then the slight scraping of a chair, and an "
Ohhhh God
!" from Albert. A moment later she heard an "
Oh, there's somebody
," and then a few moments later, "
OK, they're gone
."
"
I told you someone would see us
