Blind Dates - 1. One Pleasant Morning

Chapter 1 - One Pleasant Morning

The bus was packed just like any other Monday morning. Stephen took the time he had to make some last minute touch-ups on the presentation he would be giving first thing in the morning. Too preoccupied by his work, he missed the view of Montreal’s skyline enhanced by a fog as the bus was crossing the bridge. His work was only to be interrupted by a call of his colleague.

“Hey Nancy! Was-sup?”

“Stephen, did you have any news from the guys in Dorval? Would we be able to send that many agents there?” Nancy said, referring to the contingency plan they had to present later on.

Stephen still hadn’t made any contact with that call center but despite that, he tried to reassure her. “Exchange of good intent, they use stations from our call center if they have to, they can’t say no to us if we need to. Listen, I'm 'bout ten minutes out, we'll talk when I get in, alright?”

After a quick silence, the answer came. “Ya, okay, I'll see you then.”

Stephen barely had the time to finish what he had started before he arrived at the terminus. He walked across the street and entered his office building. Entering at the main entrance, he couldn’t help but notice that a couple of maintenance guys were finally putting down the holiday decorations. “At last,” he thought. Given the fact that they were very early in putting them up in November, Stephen wasn’t impressed that it took them until mid-January for them to finally bring the glitter down.

Still feeling grumpy from not having taken the time to get a coffee before leaving home, he decided that making a stop at the local Starbucks would be a wise idea. Luckily enough for him, there was almost no lineup to order.

“Morning! What will it be for you today?” the barista greeted.

After pondering for a moment, Stephen made his decision. “Yeah, why not, it will be a venti green eye.”

Stephen paid for his drink and went on the other side and waited. When the barista came over, he just couldn’t help from commenting on the decorations. “Have you noticed, they’re finally taking down the holiday decorations!”

While adding the shots of espressos in the coffee, the barista answered, “What do you expect, they must have put in thousands and thousands of dollars into them, they need to show them long enough!”

Stephen chuckled a little and replied, “I guess so.”

“I hear you, I sure hear you! There you go, venti green eye!”

Stephen arrived at his desk a couple of minutes later and greeted his neighbor. “Morning Zac, Simon! You guys have a good weekend?”

Both answered positively. “Dress pants and button shirt! What’s the occasion?” asked Zac.

“I’m presenting the new contingency plan to the V-P and Directors with Nancy.” Stephen answered matter-of-factly as he was starting his session onto his computer.

“Good you arrived, it’s time to go!” said Nancy as she passed his desk going to the printer.

“Well, good morning to you too!” Stephen said. “I’m coming in a minute. Have you printed the PowerPoint for everyone?”

“Yes! Got them here.”

**** 

As the presentation ended, every suit was clearing out the conference room, congratulating mainly Stephen, but also to a lesser extent Nancy, which was normal since he was the one that did most of the work.

As Stephen was about to leave, his manager, Frances, a pretty looking Canadian-born Vietnamese in her mid-thirties, stopped him.

“That was great work Stephen,” she told him. Stephen only had time to nod and acknowledge the compliment that his boss continued. “You know, I had the go-ahead to add a coordinator position in our team, would that interest you?”

Seeing that Stephen was still speechless, she went on. “You would virtually be my assistant, helping me with the monthly and yearly statements, assigning the different requests that we receive by e-mail. You’d only work on a minimum of projects, however.”

Being a promotion for him, Stephen managed to keep his composure enough to realize that it simply couldn’t be a done deal, that it couldn't be that easy. He answered, “Well yes, of course, I would like that very much!”

“Alright then, it won’t be official just yet as we need to deal with HR. There will be the official job posting on the intranet tomorrow. I do want you to officially apply for it. Book me in a meeting, I’ll explain to you exactly what I want of you, alright?”

“Ya, sure!” Stephen said. His manager was about to leave as he realized one thing. “Oh and Frances? Is it something that I can say right away to the other guys on the team?”

She mulled it over a few moments before answering. “I’d prefer you not to, I want to announce it in our next team meeting.”

“Okay, thanks!” Stephen said as she was leaving. He remained in the now empty conference room grinning. Stephen was fighting the urge he had to jump up and down in the room as much he was happy.

He had reason to be happy about it; only two years prior to that, he was brought in as that poor customer service guy, dealing with the customers listening to them whine, or worst, vent at him again and again, before getting a low level data entry clerk job and gradually getting up the ladder. Now he was about to be the second-in-command of the operational support team despite being, in his mid-twenties, the youngest of the group.

Stephen searched in his pants pocket for his cell, and realized that it was almost already lunch time. Having to talk to someone, he called his cousin Meghan.

“Hey Meghan! How are you?” Stephen said as she picked up.

“Not too bad, how about you?”

“Oh, I’m doing great! Did you bring your lunch today?” He asked, hoping that he could meet her for lunch, as they usually did at least once per week.

“No, I was simply thinking about grabbing something to eat downstairs. Why? Wanted to join me for lunch?”

“Ya, that could be nice, no?”

“Alright, let me just finish one thing over here, twenty minutes at the Desjardins food court as always?”

“Yup, perfect, see you then.”

As he arrived at the food court, Stephen didn’t have any issue finding the tall red-haired girl waiting next to the fountain. Meghan noticed him as he was getting closer and waved hello.

“Hi! How are you?” she asked him as she was giving him a hug.

“I’m always good! You’re hungry for what today?”

“Maybe a slice of pizza?”

Stephen thought about it a few seconds and agreed given that he didn’t have time to waste on deciding what to eat. “Ya, why not!”

The two of them went to order their lunch. While waiting Meghan asked, “So will you tell me what’s up with you?”

“What do you mean?” he innocently asked while getting his food.

“Well, you’re grinning and seem unusually peppy.”

“I told you that I was working on this important project, right?” After his cousin nodded in approval, Stephen went on. “Well, I presented it this morning and it went well.”

They finally found an empty table to sit at and enjoy their lunch.

“And...?”

“After the presentation, my boss took me on the side and kinda said she’d make me a coordinator.”

“Am I to understand that it’s a good thing and that you wanted it, right?”

He rapidly confirmed, “Yes, for sure, it’s a good thing. I’m happy about it, even if it will give me more work and responsibilities.” After a short silence, he asked, “How about you, didn’t you have to hand in your group project this morning?”

She heavily sighed. “Don’t remind me about it!”

“Why, what happened?”

“It was a group project, we were five in my group, and two of them either didn’t do anything or did such a poor job that we, but mainly, I had to redo their part. Anyway, I know we probably won’t have a great grade, but it’s alright, it doesn’t count for that much.”

“At least there’s a silver lining in all that,” Stephen commented. “I guess it means you were too busy with uni work to go out over the weekend?”

“No, I went to the Cafe Campus on Saturday night, but I was a good girl.”

“Oh ya? You didn’t wake up Sunday morning in some guy’s bed?” Stephen teased her.

“Nope, and there were guys that asked me, so I was really good.”

“...And there was no guy with you in your bed either when you woke up?” Stephen grinned.

“Nah, like I said, I was good, all the guys that come to me are usually lying jerks who just want some wild sex and get rid of me when they had enough of it.” Meghan said. “Maybe I should just stop going there.”

“You know, you basically just described all the guys going to clubs, right?” Stephen asked. Meghan simply nodded in agreement. Changing the subject, Stephen asked, “How go things with your roommates?”

“It’s alright, Nathan went back home for the weekend...” she started.

“Nathan being the gay one, right?”

“Right...and Harry spent so much of the weekend outside that it was as if I had the apart by myself the whole time, so that was good. It allowed me to finish my project for this morning.”

“So, you took the time to go through their rooms?” Stephen said with a big smile on his face.

Meghan felt almost insulted. “No, I don’t do that. It’s their stuff.”

“You should do it, maybe you'd find some nice things on them, an emergency payback plan just in case you need to blackmail one of them. I know that I’d so do it!”

“No need for that! I’m good enough to get all the interesting gossip that I need for that without going through their things!” She said laughingly.

Impressed, Stephen answered, “That’s actually much more clever that way. You get close to the same result, but without all the grunt work.” He then changed the subject one more time. “Is Harry still getting on your nerves?”

“Oh my god yes! Don’t get me wrong, he’s usually really cool, he can just be weird and annoying sometimes. That being said, you won’t guess what he told me!”

“What did he say this time?” Stephen sighed.

“Well, first, you’ll have to know, he’s saying that he’s being more and more into guys now.”

Meghan waited a moment for a reaction that didn’t come. Stephen wasn’t that interested in him since adjectives like weird, strange, geeky were often used to describe Harry in the past.

She went on. “He went out with us at the Cafe Campus, and he tried to pick up just about every girl there was at the time and when it didn’t work, he started doing the same with every guy. He was borderline stalky with some of them.”

“Well everyone knows that it's the best way to get laid at the end of the evening!” Stephen said sarcastically.

“Yes, for sure! But that’s not all! When he wasn’t failing at picking up guys, he was telling me how he wouldn’t be as easy as me, that he wouldn’t have sex with anyone and so on.”

“Ain’t he nice! And he was the one trying his luck with any living person in the room or close to it.”

Looking at the time on his cell, he realized that it was time for him to hurry back to his office, even if he would have preferred to stay longer with Meghan.

“Not that I don’t like to hang out with you and talk, but I really need to get back to work,” he said.

Meghan, in turn, looked at her watch. As Stephen was getting up and was putting his jacket back on, she responded, “No, it’s alright, I should also go, I have a lecture in thirty minutes.”

Just as he was about to leave her there, Meghan asked him, “Hey Stephen, I was thinking about going out again tonight to this karaoke bar, want to come? We could maybe find a couple of nice guys for us!”

“Ahhh, sorry, I can’t tonight, I already have something planned,” Stephen partially lied. “Thursday night?”

A little disappointed, she said, “Yeah, alright, but when I’ll remind you on Thursday, better not find another excuse not to come.”

Stephen briskly walked back the two blocks to his office building. As he was arriving at the building, he noticed his friend standing on the steps smoking.

Stephen had had the hots for Matt from the first day they started their training together. Unfortunately for him, the tall dark brown-haired guy was more interested in good looking ladies even if he was extremely open. Matt went on to become one of the team supervisors whereas Stephen went on the administrative side.

“I thought you wanted to quit!” Stephen remarked.

“I was trying, until I got this stupid customer!” Matt laughed as he put out his cigarette and flicked it away. “So, what’s new with you?” he asked going back in with Stephen.

“Not much, same old, same old.” He decided against telling about his upcoming promotion, not tempting the devil. “How about you, didn’t you have a date over the weekend? How did it go?” he asked his friend.

“Bah!” Matt shrugged.

“So it didn’t go that well and she certainly didn’t finished the night at your place,” Stephen commented with a little smile on his face.

Despite the innuendo, Stephen knew fully well that without being good like a priest (without the touching boys instead part), his friend certainly wasn’t a player.

“Nope, but hey, there will always be others,” Matt commented. “How about you, still no one in the works?”

“Nah, still no one, but it’s not like I’m actively looking for one,” Stephen lied. He wouldn’t actually mind having someone sharing his bed, a warm body to snuggle with at night, a nice face to wake up to in the morning, but it was true that he wasn’t making a big effort into searching for a soulmate either.

“You know, I really don’t believe you. I do know you a little after all this time.” Matt called the lie. “You must have some needs that requires, let’s just say another hot boy!”

Stephen couldn’t believe that his friend had just said that out loud in the middle of the lobby as they were surrounded by a couple of workers, but he still decided to push his luck a little more. “Oh you mean a hot boy like you, right!”

“Yeah, that would be great, if only things could be different, if only I was interested in visiting the same holes as you!” One of the workers in a classy suit almost spilled his coffee all over, but it didn’t stop Matt. “I guess we’ll have to survive without it, and that you will have to content yourself at only seeing me on naked Sundays!”

Stephen could swear that he saw some of the other workers make a little smile as they were all getting into the elevator. He whispered, “Yeah, well that can always be worked on, besides you’re the one always pushing back the next naked Sunday date.”

After the two of them got out on their floor, Matt answered, “Well, if I keep striking out, I might help you on that. But seriously, you’re right, it’s been a long time, we’ve been rescheduling it off for far too long, let’s set it up for this weekend.”

“Yeah, let’s do it!” Stephen agreed. “I need to get going, I’ve already extended my lunch break, but I’ll get back to you to set things up this weekend.”

**** 

The rest of the day went by extremely fast for Stephen. He had a pile of documents waiting for him at his desk and a good dozen e-mails to reply to. At least he managed to finish rapidly so that he didn’t have to leave too late.

Stephen came back to an empty home, just like he’s used to. The first thing he did was to undress himself to get more comfortable. He then went to his desk and logged onto his computer.

He went on all those gay dating sites he knew of, but, as he had already expected, he didn’t have any messages, or at least no messages worth replying to. As open-minded as he was when it came down to finding a guy to have some good sex with, when it came to find someone with whom he could possibly build something to last, he wasn’t exactly into the sixty year-old guys or so that cruised him.

While waiting for some conversation with Mr. Good Enough, he opened his desk drawer and took out his USB stick. He opened some of his favorite pictures that were saved on it.

Feeling some of his energy back, since his little monster was growing, he started stroking it, teasing himself until he was at full mast. A few pictures of two young twinks scattered all over his screen; he imagined himself surrounded by those guys, feeling each of their almost abnormally large dicks then picturing himself tasting one while having the other one start to work on his ass.

As he was picking up the pace, he was interrupted by a text message. Stephen knew that it was from work by the distinct sound it made. He knew that if he decided to ignore it, it would ring every few minutes until he’d read it. He figured that he could glance at it before going back to the movie he was making in his mind, where the two hung guys had just switched position on him.

That turned out to be a mistake since what he saw was some unbelievable errors; he absolutely had to take the time and correct some false information from being spread. He therefore had to close all his windows and instead connect himself by VPN. By the time he was done with his e-mails, his little guy was no longer happy.

Given the time it was, and that he was no longer in the right mood, he simply decided to cook himself something to eat. After a good meal, it was time for him to prepare himself as he had already planned on going for a swim.