Configure Me

Four notes to Mark, from your sister Lillith:- What to do when you find a girl attractive

Do not ask her for sex, especially if she is your mother's boss or priest.

Do not tell her you like her insulated physique. If she understands what you mean, she will not be flattered.

If you ah, have an erection, please hide it. Your boss Ryan is an ass but he is right that this is not a good look in a meeting.

Do not focus your attention on her breasts as many women find this offensive. To show her you like her, focus your attention on her eyes, or if you find this intense, on her eyebrows.

Do not tell her you wish to dip her in a vat of aluminium so she would have skin of metal. (okay, five notes, but wrote the last one in after the police called round.)

Mark Ballard looked at the note on his iPhone, as his other hand clasped a shredded cat5 cable revealing it's copper innards. In front of his work desk, stood a woman with hair like copper. He lifted the cable, so that as the woman was escorted by his boss Ryan, to a vacant desk in front of him, the copper wire glinted just as the copper colour of her hair glinted. Even though her attention was focused on Ryan, Mark smiled at the cute redhead.

Copper. micro copper cables. Hair

.

Copper hair.

Mark's thoughts rushed in a flurry of excitement. She turned round and looked at him, and then hurriedly and clumsily averted her gaze.

"Mark, Mark hello? Oh God, he's in love again, spare us." Gunther exclaimed. His blond Tintin quiff bounced as he threw his skinny hands melodramatically into the air.

Mark turned his head away and looked at Gunther confused, "Again? When was I last in love?"

Gunther smirked, "When we got that new hoover with the extra shiny nozzle."

Mark scowled at Gunther in annoyance, "I was never in love with that hoover. At the very least I prefer my lovers to have a central processing unit."

Mark heard his boss Ryan clear his throat from behind, "Uh okay, awkward. Sally, meet the guys who make all the movement happen in our games. This is Mark and Gunther, our physics programmers. Mark and Gunther meet Sally, our new web developer. She's also going to be migrating the backend database for both our intranet and our customer extranet over from mySQL to msSQL."

Mark gazed at Sally with great interest. She was sweet- looking, with flushed cheeks and freckles, glasses that hid earnest emerald eyes and waves of red hair that spilt, like newly burnished copper onto her shoulders. She was plump, cuddly with a buxom physique and a large bottom. Mark smiled at her widely and fidgeted. She nudged up her glasses and looked away shyly.

Mark's romantic reveries were interrupted by Gunther's protestations, "You have to be kidding me! Out with the near Platonic ideal of open source, technology without borders, available even to the simplest of street children, and in with the corporate dronery of Microsoft? Never did I think I would live to suffer this day!"

Sally looked lost for words, but then, in a quiet English accent she replied, "Um, it's a more stable platform, and the support we can get is more standardized than say what you can find for open source. For example, if we ever implement SharePoint-"

Gunther put his hand up in a halt sign, "Holy mercy! Ryan, security really let this Beelzebub through the front gates of our Utopia? Heaven is burning as we speak!"

Ryan growled angrily at Gunther, "Gunther, my office, NOW! Mark, you can show her round the kitchen, show her the fire exits and stuff, just please don't share your political views on technology with her."

Mark nodded and inhaled, thrilled. He bounced to his feet, towering over her at 6'4. To her paleness, he was dark and mixed-raced, his hair curly locks wild and unruly, despite his sister's efforts to try and get him to a hairdresser.

Ryan led a defiant Gunther away into his office.

Mark remembered the list he had revised that his sister had written for him. The list of things not to do to a girl when attracted. That meant if there was five things he could not do to a girl he was attracted to, there was still hundreds, thousands, scratch that,

zillions

of things he could do to a girl he was attracted to.

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Sally gazed in contemplation at Mark's desk, believing that someone's work desk could unwittingly say a lot about a person. Mark's was covered in robots; mini-model androids, strange robotic parts that looked like they might work, and some post cards of anime mecha. Sally did not need great powers of deduction to postulate that this was a man who liked his robots.

The moment she had seen Mark, a tall dark handsome man with a smile on his face, she felt incredibly uncomfortable, her cheeks had flushed, and she tried to compose herself.

There is no way anyone that handsome could ever like you, just be professional. Best avoid his eye contact too, to avoid turning into a quivering wreck of lust.

"Okay, let me show you to the kitchen. I think you will be impressed by the coffee machine. It has a volumetric water pump with heat exchangers, and, furthermore it does an excellent job with the frothing of milk. Gunther hacked it and subtly tweaked the programming." Mark said enthusiastically.

Sally looked worried and vowed to stay away from the 'tweaked' coffee machine, keeping her head down as she followed Mark.

He has lovely strong legs, I wonder if he plays sports.

As they went into the kitchen Sally could feel herself heating up at the thought of his proximity.

I hope I am not blushing too much.

As she followed him into the kitchen, she allowed her hair to cascade around her face, in the hope of shielding her embarrassment, that she, frumpy Sally, would even deign to be attracted to such a beautiful man.

"Sooo...this is the kitchen. It includes chairs, table, sink, coffee machine, toaster, microwave, cutlery, cups, plates. Everything here that you could ever want, in the world." Mark leant against a canteen counter and smiled at Sally, assessing her.

If I ever make a robot, it will have plenty of copper hair for heat conduction and well-positioned padding for insulation. It will look like Sally.

Mark thought excitedly.

Sally felt uncomfortable as Mark looked at her body with brazen hunger, she fidgeted slightly, "Um, so how long have you worked here?"

Mark looked at Sally in the eyes, then feeling overwhelmed by the rawness of the eye contact, strangely piercing evergreen eyes, he looked away before straightening up, "Um, um. Three years. Okay, let me show you the fire exit."

Mark rushed past, feeling a surge of both exhilaration and terror. All of his 'admirations' for women had ended badly. He had been accused of stalking his neighbour when he crafted thirty one miniature robot sculptures based on her likeness and planted them outside her lawn one morning. That had ended with the police. Then there was the time when he had fallen in love with a girl in junior high, writing a very simple transposition cipher-encrypted love note. Mark had read somewhere that girls loved rubescent colours, so he wrote the cryptic letter in deep red ink, though as he was using a fountain pen, the ink had run a bit. That had also resulted, eventually, in the police calling round, with dogs. The dogs had barked at him, and that had frightened Mark. After that, Lillith told him to be careful regarding how he conducted himself with women.

Sally followed Mark down a staircase.

"This is a fire exit. You can exit it in the event of a fire." Mark gestured, at the fire exit. He appeared to be fascinated with Sally's eyebrows.

He is paying a bit too much attention to my eyebrows.

Perturbed, Sally felt her cheeks grow redder still.

"Oh that's good."Sally croaked out, fidgeting on her heels as Mark's gaze seemed to intensify.

"This is a fire extinguisher. You can use it to extinguish a fire. Your cheeks look like they are on fire by the way, they are very, very red." Mark drawled, closing in on her, he placed his hands on her cheek, "very warm."

Sally looked at Mark, entranced, as his hands caressed her cheek, he was still gazing at her, eyes dilate like black moons, his breathing heavier. Sally felt herself growing flush in response, and all sorts of delicious sensations washed over her.

But then like a pin to a balloon Ryan's aghast shouting brought them both back down to earth, "Mark! My office now! Now yes Mark...I am so sorry Sally, my staff normally aren't so tactile with their new colleagues. Let me show you to your desk and then I am coming back to you."

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Rhett sat twitching his leg at like a hummingbird as he nervously waited for Ryan.

"Frak!" He cried in despair. How could be in trouble when he did not break one of Lillith's rules? He had simply observed that Sally had hot, red cheeks. Of course he was going to touch them, he was very much the natural scientist.

If her cheeks were hot, was she hot everywhere?

Mark fidgeted at the thought, feeling a pleasant tingle stir his cock.

Ryan opened the door to his office, looked at his employee and sighed, "Christ Mark. You spend all your time ignoring everyone apart from me and Gunther-"

"Gunther and I." Mark succinctly corrected Ryan's English.

"Okay, Gunther and I, and I get it because of your Asperger's and stuff, but then the moment I think 'this guy is a safe pair of hands, he won't do anything crazy, apart from show her the canteen, show her the fire exits' you set out to prove me wrong. Lucky for you Sally is just brushing it off, saying she's fine. So, tell me Mark, why did you touch Sally that way?"

"Mostly for scientific reasons. But also because she is pretty, I like her hair. It is good to touch people slightly if you wish to indicate that you like them." Mark smiled at the thought and clasped and unclasped his hands repeatedly and blinked rapidly in excitement.

"Yeah, yeah, so did you get this gem of courtship advise from your genius of a sister Lillith, the usual suspect who by the way, ruined my read of Hot Nuts magazine this month. They made her Motorbabe of the month? Her? I mean look at her Mark, like she doesn't have a care in the world. Look.", Ryan rubbed his shaved head with his muscular hand and then angrily leant over his desk and thrust the magazine in Mark's face. Lillith was indeed splayed all over a motorbike, one of the one's from the shop she shared with her friend Kara. She was wearing very little but a leather corset, bikini bottoms and knee-high boots.

Mark shrugged, "I like the motorbike. It is a Harley Davidson Fatboy. She did the paintwork, and also the engravings. She discusses it in the interview in Hot Nuts."

"Pfft! Yeah right, let's read a choice article here, 'there is nothing I love more than to show the whole world that I am as serious about bikes as anyone' yeah right. She thinks she's as serious as anyone with her butt suspended in the air, her mocha, would you say mocha for her skin tone?"

"If we are comparing my sister's complexion to a beverage-"

"Doesn't have to be a beverage, can be something edible, preferably a dessert." Ryan added.

"Coca Cola, with 12% tonic water." Mark suggested thoughtfully.

"Let's just keep it to mocha...her mocha tits pert in that leather bustier, straddling the bike like she is about to make love to it. The girl just doesn't care, doesn't care about anyone else apart from herself that nasty friend of hers, and one day she's gonna pay." Ryan said running his finger down the offending magazine page.

Mark fidgeted in discomfort, "I am not sure I understand Ryan, does my sister owe you money?"

Ryan chuckled darkly, "She owes me more than money Mark. You know she's the reason I changed school's as a kid? Mouth, that's what they used to call her, Lillith the Mouth, and her friend, the tall skinny half-Vietnamese one-"

"Kara" Mark grimaced when recalling Lillith's physically aggressive friend.

"Yeah Kara, they called her Muscles. Because Mouth would insult you, but Kara liked to hit, push, whatever. Lillith and Kara, Mouth and Muscles."

Mark was not sure how this was all relevant to his predicament, he yawned, "Sorry Ryan, I should get back to work. Thank you for the fruitful conversation."

"Sure, hand me that tissue over there would ya? And close the door behind you." Mark looked round, Ryan was looking intently at the spread of his sister, and appeared to pull out some hand cream. Mark closed the door.

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"Wow, your sister burnt Ryan bad. He was weeping like a faucet over 'Lillith this' 'Lillith that' blah blah blah." Gunther said with relish at the thought of his boss's weakness.

Mark twitched his leg excitedly as he rose to his sister's defence, "Lillith is always saying Ryan hurt her, so I do not believe Ryan as my sister told me she would never lie to me. Ryan scolded me Gunther."

"Whatever for?" Gunther responded.

"Because I was compelled to feel the temperature of Sally's cheek as she was blushing remarkably. It seemed to be the appropriate thing to do at the time. She is so beautiful. Do you think I should ask her to be my girlfriend?"

"No, you need to break 'em to take 'em. When you look at her imagine she's a shoe shine boy and you have nothing but contempt for her lowly position, then point out a fault she has and tease her about it. Woman love that. But hey, they would, it's the way of the Electric G." Gunther smugly smiled to Mark.

Mark looked a bit perplexed, "Who is the Electric G?"

"I am, that's just my pick up artist name, the G standards for Gunther. You're fresh clay my man, fresh clay, just call me the potter because I am going to mould you good. So Clay Boy, let me show you the hottest pick up joint in town, where the girls are always beautiful and have the biggest tits in the world. "

Mark twitched his leg rapidly in excitement, "Where is that?"

" Second Life, you know, Second Life? The virtual world? Man, which rock do you hide under Mark?" Gunther asked with genuine incredulity.

Mark scrunched his nose up unimpressed, "I have not been on that for three years. Also, how do people have sex if they are not in the same room? And why is does your avatar look like a hairy version of Dracula?"

"-because I'm half-chinchilla, half vampire duh. I'm a chinpire."

"I have never heard of one of those before." Mark stated sceptically.

Gunther snorted, "Yeah that's just called naivety, don't parade it all around town, and this here, is my girl, right there see."

Mark peered at the chinpire's companion, a strange creature with glowing red eyes, buckteeth and rat's tail but which confusingly possessed cat's ears, whiskers and paws. Mark was a bit confused as to whether it was male or female, but he soon figured out the large furry chest mutation were in fact breasts. He shuddered.

Gunther continued unfazed, "She's called Katnipzz and she is a neko and rat hybrid. Little cutie huh? The things she can do with that tail, when it wraps around you, feels like a earthworm with gigantism and a heart of gold."

Mark frowned dubiously, deciding he did not want to be a pick up artist after all, if that is what he could pick up, "How did the creature, your girlfriend, come to be?"

Gunther looked pleased that Mark asked, it gave him an opportunity to tell the story, "Her father was a lab rat who fell in love with her mother who was a vulnerable neko that lived all alone, in a rubbish dump. She fell for the rat's obvious charms and soon gave birth to Katnipzz."

Mark could see that one of Katnipzz legs seemed to be back to front and slightly green, he looked worried, "I think there is something wrong with the way the mesh for the avatar has rendered. Her foot is back to front."

Gunther sniggered and shook his head at Mark's naivety, "Katnipzz is rendered just perfect. Poor girl was bitten by a zombie while she was prostituting herself to some werewolves, but the werewolves gave her a magical antidote made from toxic waste that stopped her fully transforming into zombie, so now only her foot is zombie. She drags her heel a little. It can be surprisingly sensual to see her little leg slither along, sometimes I like to chew on it, not sure if it is the chinchilla or vampire in me."

Mark scratched his bouffant of curls then shook his head, "I don't understand it Gunther, but you know what? I don't think I want to understand it."

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"Hi my name is Nina, you're new here right?" Nina swung round, quickly shrinking her Second Life browser, allowing her zombie rat-cat avatar self and her chinpire lover to shrink with it. Nina, who was of Indian heritage and had long black hair and a cherry-brown complexion wearing a 'Boo Fox, Hooray Wheldon!" t-shirt inspected Sally with friendly curiosity, eating a doughnut as she did so.

"Yes, I am, nice to meet you. I'm Sally." Sally replied shyly, averting her gaze, trying to sound relaxed, those she was pretty tense from the encounters she had suffered, especially with the handsome but eccentric Mark.

"So web developer huh? Cool, you have a lot of work to do, the last web developer thought that animated gifs were the next big thing, so that should keep you entertained." Nina rolled her eyes in sarcasm as doughnut crumbs stuck to her T-shirt.

"I don't know, I got the sense from Gunther that you guys have a sort of equilibrium, and some of the ideas I might have, some of my responsibilities, may be disruptive." Sally said tentatively.

"Pfft! Gunther! Seriously don't listen to him, he's an idiot, really. He once told the whole office I wrote internet porn based on the Dragon Age game, with me as an alluring Indian mage elf and Alistair the sexy Gray Warden giving each other oral sex by a campfire as some warrior dwarves masturbated around us."

"That's terrible, I didn't peg him for a liar." Sally said sympathetically.

"Oh it wasn't a lie, it was the truth, but didn't need the whole office to know it."

"Uh, oh...um...so, what do you do?"

"Animate, 3D anthromorphic animations. Hey, do you want to grab lunch?" Nina lent forward, her wild mane of jet black hair spilling forward as she fixed a manic, beady-eyed glare at Sally.

"Um, but it's ten o'clock?"

"Doesn't matter, Ryan our boss is like, totally the most chilled guy ever! Come on, hey maybe I can even show you our playroom, we have Guitar Hero and everything!"

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After work Sally walked home, chewing her lower lip nervously. Well that went well, first day, abused professionally by one colleague, pleasantly manhandled sexually, or sexuallyish by another colleague, sat next to another colleague with a penchant for writing porn based on video games.

That went really well, not.

Still, at least, they are sort of nice. I like America, not quite so brutal being a redhead here either.

Sally thought back to her torturous youth and being a redhead in English comprehensive school. She shuddered.

"Hi, where are you going? Why don't you have a car?" She heard Mark from behind, running up to catch with her. She turned and looked at him and her heart beat faster.

"Hi Mark." Sally looked at Mark nervously, blinking profusely as she was not used to having such unabashed attention from men, especially one so handsome.

"Hi, so where are you going? Where is your car?" Mark repeated doggedly.

"Oh, I'm walking home, I live really close, I don't have a car."

"Why don't you have a car?" Mark pursued.

"I don't drive, and walking is good for you, so two incidental birds bumped off with one stone I suppose."

"I like your hair, can I touch it?"Mark asked intently.