*Corman

The longer Corman sat at his desk at work, the more his ass tingled.

It was almost bad enough to distract him from what might have happened the night before last. What seemed to have maybe happened. The thing that was perhaps something he participated in.

The vision of the man screaming and slipping on his marble floor as he tried to run in fluffy slippers flashed again through Corman's head.

Corman couldn't explain it, but he had to stop lying to himself. He had helped kill a man last night, even if he couldn't remember the details and had no idea why he would agree to do it.

His stomach turned and he considered throwing up in his trash can. Would the police call him back with follow-up questions? Because, yeah, the guy was a shit-stain on the human race, but that was no excuse for killing him.

He should never have gotten mixed up with the woman in black leather, no matter how amazing she looked running through the golf course sprinklers. That was a mistake. He should have known something was off the second a woman as sexy as she was walked into the bar and straight to him.

Yet, even now, after helping her kill that evil, rich pedophile, he couldn't quite regret the encounter.

The wildest night of his life...and all he had to show for it was a sore, itchy spot on his butt cheek. What had she done to him?

And, more importantly, would he ever see her again?

His agenda alarm pinged. He shook his head. A meeting? Rebecca, newly hired in management, breezed by his cubicle door, arms full of papers and her laptop. She reappeared, walking backwards, only to stop and grin widely at him.

What did she want?

"Well, come on, partner!" she said, giving a snorting laugh. "Time for the show to begin. You can walk with me."

"Walk where with you?"

"Oh, aren't you fun?" she asked, snorting again. "Let's go."

He frowned, confused. The soul-sucking agony of working for a health insurance company was bad enough when no one talked to him. Rebecca's cheerfulness made it so much worse.

"Mr. Bennet? I'm really looking forward to your game progress report." She hitched her arm to wave him along.

The progress report meeting. His current project was designing a Choose Your Own Health Insurance Adventure Game for potential clients to play online. The whole thing was an utter abomination that crushed his will to live a little more every day.

"After you," he choked out.

In theory, he could have taken his laptop to the meeting, but he couldn't be bothered. Easing into his chair, he glanced around the small room. His team of coders were there. The gorgeous Celia and Arnold, from marketing, were whispering and laughing, acutely reminding Corman that he had never once whispered and joked with one of his hot coworkers.

In his mind, the woman in black leather leaned close to his ear. Come with me tonight.

Yes.

"Hey everyone," Tim said as he hustled in, five minutes after they were supposed to have started. "Let's kick this off. Corman? Your team's progress?"

Corman cleared his throat. The three other members of his group looked everywhere in the room but at him. The spot on his ass twitched so hard, it almost knocked him out of his chair.

The overwhelming desire to go...somewhere...gripped him in his bones.

The woman in black leather smiled at him in his memory. She beckoned for him to come.Yeah. That's where he needed to go. To meet her somewhere.

"Corman?" Tim asked, snapping him back to the meeting.

"Right. The game is going well. To recap..." He launched into a technical tirade, keeping the jargon as complicated as possible. His only hope was that they would pretend to follow along. He had no clue how it was progressing.

"Whoa, hold your horses, buddy!" Rebecca said, busting through the coding details on how, in theory, users could pick out their own health insurance weapons. "How about you explain this like a real person would?"

"I am a real person."

Tim cleared his throat. "I think it would be refreshing if you would just tell us when the product will be ready. I've got marketing climbing up my back for this thing. We need to get our numbers up for the eighteen to thirty-two year olds."

Rebecca nodded, face somber. "That age-group loves games. The sooner we can get them on our website, and playing our game, the sooner we can get them to sign the dotted lines."

"And this Choose Your Own Adventure thing," Arnold said, "I don't like it—too weird. Too complicated. Players should have to choose one of three doors when they leave the house in the morning. Behind one door, they have a heart attack, another, they fall off the roof, and the third they contract a terminal disease."

"They fall off the roof walking out of their front door?" Corman asked.

Arnold flipped his pen. "It can happen. Make sure they understand that without our insurance, they are screwed."

Tim nodded pensively. "Agreed. No matter which door they choose, they end up dying or languishing in the hospital."

"And racking up the bills so they also end in debt," Arnold agreed, pointing his pen now at Corman.

"But that's not the game we agreed on," Corman said.

Tim rolled his eyes. "Does it really matter? Can we all just be honest that the point is to scare people into signing up for as much coverage as possible?"

"With as little pay out from us as possible, am I right?" Arnold snorted. He and Tim bumped fists. "Hello, end of the year bonuses!"

"This isn't possible," Corman said.

Rebecca cleared her throat. Hands steepled at her chest in a half prayer, she swept the room with her gaze. "I think we have strayed from the real reason we are having this meeting today. It isn't about the little details of the game for our potential customers. Do you know why we are really here?" She paused. "We are here to build one another up! To be one team. We can only succeed, we can only win, when we fight for each other and not for ourselves."

Corman's mouth dropped slowly open. He had no response to her inanities. His butt cheek was on fire by that point. He had to get out of there. "Fine. You want to change things, then we'll change them. Let me shoot you an email to confirm the new due date and three door game scenario. I think that wraps everything up."

His team sputtered their objections, but he couldn't stay and listen. If the boss wanted a different game, who was he to argue? Especially when he had more pressing problems.

He bolted for the hallway and had almost turned the corner towards his cubicle when Tim caught up to him.

Tim circled his finger in the air. "My office, now."

In his pocket, Corman's cell vibrated with a call. He pulled it out and, as he glanced at it, his entire torso clenched violently. "Sorry, Tim. I have to take this."

"I think you need to rethink your priori—"

"It's the police. I'll be back after my lunch break." Corman turned for the elevator and answered.

They wanted him to come to the station and answer a few questions about his statement. He wanted relief from the twitching nerves in his lower cheek. If he didn't have a heart-attack immediately upon stepping out the building's front door.

*** Health Insurance in the States - now that's horror story stuff... Hit the star and thanks for reading! ***