[Steven Lyle Jordan]

6: Intermission

I opened the door to my bedroom at about 4am. In the dark, I saw a stirring in my bed. That would be Gail, who had stayed up with me until about midnight while I worked on my program, and then crawled off to bed. I wish I could say our earlier lovemaking had worn her out… but truth be told, she was one of those girls who had the kind of stamina that football teams looked for (in themselves, their girlfriends, and the girls who liked to do the whole team at once). No: She’d gone to bed because she was bored, no more and no less, with watching me work my IT magic, muttering incomprehensibly to myself and sucking down espressos (Reilly had come back from Starbucks with four of ‘em—God bless her).

I shucked off my clothes, all but my shorts, and crawled into bed next to her. Gail shifted, then turned over to face me, and draped her arm over my chest. Even in the dark, and before my eyes had fully adjusted to the gloom, she was an angel. I reflected on the things she’d told me in L.A., and I felt truly sorry that things hadn’t worked out as she’d originally intended for her life. It must have been tough, realizing she could not keep the man she’d loved, and because she was actually too wild for him… considering how woman are taught about men, and about using their sexuality in a man’s world, it must have been quite a blow to her. Then, deliberately switching from a girl who used her (ahem) assets to get work, to using her brains instead… well, that should have been a no-brainer, but with a boss who apparently liked her to use her (ahem, again) assets, defying him and keeping her old job anyway must have been especially frustrating (that might have needed a third ahem, but I’m tired).

On the other hand, if all of that hadn’t happened to her, she certainly wouldn’t be lying here with me. Of all the things I’d done over the years, I still couldn’t figure out if I’d ever done anything to deserve a girl like this. But whether I deserved it or not, I knew one thing: I didn’t plan to do anything that would make her leave me.

As I thought of all this, I realized Gail’s eyes were open, and she looked up at me with a tired smile. “Hi, lover. Did you finish?”

I nodded. “The program is ready, and I’ve already uploaded it to the web.”

Gail became more alert. “Already? How soon before something happens?”

“I have no way of knowing,” I shrugged. “It’s up to BM to make their move. But like I said earlier, I’m betting the minute they know Cooley is leaving, they’ll want to use it before it’s too late. They’ll either use it at that exact moment, or try to wait for a more appropriate time. I’m guessing they will try to hit the after-market hours, 4 to 8pm eastern standard time. But they might as easily do pre-market, 7 to 9:30am. All I can do is stay ready to jump on it.”

Gail nodded slightly. “I’ll send Mel an e-mail first thing in the morning.” Then she started to crawl on top of me. “In the meantime, have I told you how much I love you?”

“Um… yeah, I seem to recall hearing you say that once or twice,” I smiled.

“Oh, good. And have I told you how sexy I think you are?”

“Yeah, that sounds familiar, too.”

“Excellent. And have I told you how brilliant I think you are?”

I actually had to think about that one. “You know… now that you mention it, I don’t think I’ve heard that from you.”

“Ah. I knew I was forgetting something. Allow me, then, to show you how much I think of your brilliance.” And she kissed me, allowing her long hair to flow down around my head and envelope me in a blond curtain. Despite my bone-weariness, I could feel that other bone responding to the promises of that incredible body. Gail noticed it, too, and quickly reached down to pull my shorts down to my knees. At the same time, I hooked the hips of her panties and pushed them down, then rolled her over until I was on top of her.

She grunted in pleasure at my response. “Mike, I want you to know something: If you were offered your old job, and decided to go back to Baltimore… I’d go with you.”

“Are you kidding?” I smiled. “F**k the old job! I never want to leave San Diego.”

“Oh, thank God,” she said, and pulled me down hungrily.

We spent the next few hours alternating between rolling around like puppies, cooing like lovebirds, and doing it like rabbits—okay, in Gail’s case, maybe more like rabid wolverines. (She’s the best at what she does, too.) If anything, she was even wilder now that she had confessed her past sins, and I had absolved her of every one without requiring a single Hail Mary from her (though, to my eternal gratitude, she gave me several). But she was also more appreciative, more enamored… almost worshipful. I came to realize she really needed that absolution, that she’d kept her feelings bottled up for far too long. And the fact that she’d been willing to confess to me, made her all the more treasured. She had told those secrets to me. How could I not return the love of a woman who thought that highly of me?

Especially one who went down on me like a rabid wolverine?

As the sun came up, Gail actually paused in our lovemaking to find her Blackberry and send an e-mail to Mel Cooley, telling him it was okay to quit, and include any histrionics he felt appropriate, as soon as he was ready. He would be getting it around 10am his time, which probably meant BM would trigger their program sometime in the after-hours market, some six hours from now, or afterward. We had an almost sure six hours to live it up, because after that, I’d either be a hero… or in FBI custody. I told Gail that.

“Don’t worry,” Gail said. “There’s enough evidence now to keep you out of jail, I think.”

“Just not enough to convict BM,” I replied. “Which is what I really want.”

“You gotta have faith,” Gail said. “Like that time, two weeks ago, when we saw the web article about orgasms?”

“Yeah,” I sighed. The article stated categorically that it was impossible to have nine orgasms in thirty minutes. We were sure we could prove them wrong.

Then I paused. “Hold on. We didn’t get to nine orgasms in thirty minutes.”

“Only because you fell off the bed,” Gail pointed out, “and threw off my timing.”