A Romance: Shutdown , Restart

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Jodie’s face pinched in exasperation. She leaned back and looked along the row of desks in search of a colleague who wasn’t busy on the phone. Alex, sitting at the desk immediately to her right, took his headset off and asked her what the trouble was.

“It’s my computer –The whole screen’s frozen! That’s the fourth time!”

“Call the helpdesk. Do you have their number?”

“Yes, but they never come.”

“They will, eventually. Quick, there’s Nadia! She works on PC support. Hey NADIA! C’mere a sec, darling, Josie here needs help.”

“It’s Jodie, with a D.”

“Jodie. Sorry. Nadia will sort you out, won’t you love?”

Nadia stood over Jodie and looked at the screen. She was tall, about 5′ 8 and masculine looking, with short black-brown hair and a wide, pleasant-looking face with high cheekbones. No make-up, no lipstick. She wore army-style black pants with a plain white collared tee shirt. She reminded Jodie of a sports instructor.

Jodie’s appearance was very different: Petite, with streaked and layered blonde hair cut in a style unexceptionable in her native Colorado, but almost unknown in London.

Her clothes matched her aspirations, smart, efficient and sexually attractive, but safely within the limits of the dress code of investment banking: A tight black cashmere sweater, short Royal blue two-piece, black shoes with three-inch heels. Her nails and lips were the same pale shade of crimson.

As a student in Denver, she was known as a skilled and graceful ice skater, popular with the boys, less so with the girls. She graduated in economics with very high marks. This achievement was not connected with a particularly influential professor’s infatuation with her, despite unkind rumours: She was smart and diligent enough to not to have needed any preferential treatment.

Before her recent move to London she’d broken off her long relationship with Doug, the “boy next door”, with relatively little guilt or recrimination. Her career was, after all, HER career, she had told him with finality.

Nadia, still standing, leaned over Jodie and jiggled the mouse.

“Well,” said Jodie impatiently, “can you fix it, I’m really behind with my work now.”

“Sure.” Nadia squatted, resting her large hand on the arm of Jodie’s chair, swivelling it slightly. She reached under the desk, behind the PC and flicked the on/off switch. Jodie could smell her underarms. Ugh, she sweated like a man.

Nadia stood up and fixed her eyes on Jodie. “There! For some problems it’s best just to shut down and restart.” Jodie, caught in her gaze, mumbled her thanks.

Alex, who Jodie was learning was the joker of the team, asked Nadia if she would “go down” under his desk next. Nadia told him she would, but she might end up damaging his equipment.

“See you in the pub later?” Alex called after her as she left down the aisle. Her mobile phone rang. As she answered it, she raised an affirmative thumb to Alex, without turning back. Alex turned to Jodie. “Nadia’s one of the boys. Liverpool supporter. My kind of woman.”

Jodie spent the next weeks working hard. She organized her apartment in Knightsbridge, registered for the bank’s on-site gym, memorized organization charts, found the local amenities, and learned everyone’s name. She listed them in an Excel spreadsheet, secretly ranking them in terms of their usefulness to her career.

*****

Jodie emerged from the gym on her way to the showers. Twenty minutes’ run and a half-mile on the rowing machine had filled her with endorphins.

To get back to the locker room she had to pass through a training room.

There was Nadia, in long silk shorts, with a pair of boxing gloves on, sparring with a really good-looking black instructor, a perfectly muscled athlete. He wore padded shields on his hands.

“Hi, Jodie, burned off the stress?” Nadia called as she passed.

“Yup. You too?”

“Not yet…” Nadia spun with the suddenness of a tiger and round-kicked head-high into the instructor’s hand pads. The instructor staggered back three paces, grinning.

In the shower Jodie let the water run over her face, taking stock of her progress since her arrival in London. She was settling in, on the whole. She could be doing a little better socially, though. Also she was getting a little horny… the gym wasn’t going to provide a substitute for sex for much longer, she mused. Her mind drifted lazily, alighting on Göztepe Escort the image of Nadia kickboxing. Suddenly conscious, she peered out of the cubicle, aware of the time.

She wondered when Nadia would finish her training session.

The hot water tricked to the floor from Jodie’s pubes. She lingered. Other women came, showered and left. Jodie began to suspect that someone would notice her absence from work.

Eventually Nadia came naked into the shower room. They saw each other. Nadia had a beautiful body. Powerful. Not a man’s body, though, Jodie perceived. Wider hipped, hairless, and smoother than a man’s. Her breasts were like Jodie’s own, small and firm.

With a thrill she realised Nadia was approaching her, feline and intent.

Silently, Nadia stepped into the cubicle, and faced her.

Without a word, she gripped Jodie’s buttocks firmly with one hand. With the other she grabbed a handful of Jodie’s hair behind her back, and gently but irresistibly pulled down, forcing her neck arched. Jodie smelt her man’s sweat again. Nadia sucked hungrily at her neck.

Nadia pressed her wide-open lips hard onto to Jodie’s. This was too fast, too – intense. Jodie resisted, half-heartedly. Nadia pushed her tongue into Jodie’ closed mouth, and probed and flickered deep inside. She squeezed her, kneaded her buttocks slowly.

Jodie was held almost motionless, for five, ten, twenty seconds as the shower hissed around them. She felt she would faint. Her eyes fluttered closed.

Finally Nadia released her. “Do you want to meet after work for a drink?” she asked with almost comical casualness.

“Okay, ” Jodie managed to gasp.

By seven the pub was already noisy and smoke-filled.

This seemed to be a regular Friday night thing for Nadia and her circle of good-natured, loud and raucous drinking buddies. Alex was there, so were some other men, mostly “tekkies” that worked with Nadia on PC support. She didn’t know their names.

After a half-hour Jodie began to get irritated: Nadia was paying little attention to her.

And when Nadia had ordered the round of drinks, pints of beer or lager for everyone, including herself, Jodie thought she saw a slight disapproving raise of Nadia eyebrows when she’d asked for Chablis.

It was a far cry from the intimate tête-à-tête that Jodie had anticipated.

Someone was shouting above the din, attempting to tell a joke: (“HEY, HOW DO THE FRENCH HOLD THEIR LIQUOR?”)

“Ok, That’s it, ” thought Jodie, “time to leave”.

But at that moment Nadia motioned Jodie to an empty table away from the bar.

Jodie found Nadia was easy to talk to. She was quiet but not aloof, complementing Jodie’s natural volubility. Jodie felt comfortable confiding in her, although she noticed that Nadia didn’t seem to reciprocate.

She did learn that Nadia’s parents were Czech, and she used to work in a bar in Soho. But she was not as forthcoming with her life story as Jodie had been. Were there skeletons in her closet?

Three pints of beer and three quarters of a bottle of Chablis later, she had become even more taciturn, while Jodie was now almost garrulous. Jodie remarked on this. “Maybe that’s the difference between beer and wine. Or London and Denver.”

“Maybe. So, you don’t like London?”

“Well, it’s a little hard to get to know people.”

Nadia leaned over and stroked her face. Jodie suddenly felt shy, an unfamiliar sensation for her. She decided it was time to broach the subject of their encounter in the showers that day.

“You know, I’m not actually gay, ” Jodie blurted, “even though you’re not the first woman I’ve…”

Nadia interrupted. “You know the best lover I’ve ever had? Raymond.”

“Raymond?”

“The guy I was sparring with today. A fucking genius.”

“Yeah, he looks like he’d be pretty good,” said Jodie, in spite of a small competitive pang of envy.

“What about you? Who was your best?”

Jodie smiled enigmatically. “Ask me tomorrow.” She clunked her glass to Nadia’s. “Cheers, mate,” she said in her best Cockney accent.

“Cheers.” Nadia’s eyes were predatory.

Alex came and plonked himself down at their table, spilling his beer. “Nadia. I’m fucking drunk,” he said, his face close to hers.

“So? You’re also fucking ugly, but you’ll be sober tomorrow. Go home to your lovely wife before someone else does.”

Alex belched Göztepe Escort Bayan loudly in reply. He turned to Jodie and asked, smiling ingenuously, “Am I interrupting something?”

He continued to look at Jodie, but spoke to Nadia. “Hey, how come you get all the best women? Josie, I mean Jodie, tell me: What has she got that I haven’t got?”

Nadia laughed. Jodie said, “Do you want me to draw you a picture?”

Alex rose from the table. “Don’t go away, I’m just getting a pen and paper.”

They tumbled out of the taxi into the cold night. Jodie fumbled for her key and let them in. She switched on the light, and removed her coat. “Here we are, my one room mansion, small but perfectly formed. Would you like a coffee or…” Nadia stifled Jodie’s question with her lips.

She lifted her and carried her to the bed in the corner of the room.

She laid her on her back, with her feet on the pillows, and her head at the foot of the bed.

Jodie wriggled out of her top and undid the catch on her bra, but left the shoulder straps – “let Nadia unwrap her own present”, she thought. She half closed her eyes and sighed deliciously, hands behind her head. She knew that this “take me I’m yours” mime was almost a parody, but she also knew that it tended to work almost every time.

Nadia wrenched off her own tee shirt. She removed her black sports bra over her head quickly. Jodie smelt her sweaty odour again. But rather than disgust her, it inflamed her passion.

Nadia knelt on the floor at the foot of the bed, ran her middle fingertips lightly from the tip of Jodie’s nose to the end of her fine eyebrows, like a masseuse. She bent and kissed Jodie’s upside-down face gently. Jodie open her eyes. Nadia’s lips were an inch away from them, in shadow.

Nadia leaned further over her, pushing the straps and cups of Jodie’s bra down. Jodie began to pant involuntarily, sensing the panther-like power of the woman. An image flashed unbidden to her mind that she had fallen prey to a vast carnivore. The sense of imminent danger only increased her desire.

She shuddered convulsively as Nadia’s lips pounced gently on her breast.

They licked each other, now pushing with the point of their tongues, searching, drawing each other’s nipples to full erectness. Nadia bracketed Jodie’s slim torso with her arms. Her fingers pushed into the crack in Jodie’s thighs. Jodie spread her legs in response.

Nadia climbed to the bed and straddled her, pinioning her arms with her knees. She bent her head low till her hair tickled Jodie’s thighs. Jodie watched the magnificent mane of Nadia’s pubes swaying above her face.

Nadia’s tongue flickered just beyond her clitoris.

Jodie caught Nadia in a head-scissors. She shouted, almost it felt, calling to Nadia’s cunt directly, “Come DOWN! Bring it DOWN! Gimme! GIMME!!” She craned her neck, but it was just out of reach.

Nadia struggled to wrench Jodie’s thighs from their hold. She was shocked at Jodie’s vehemence and strength. Her head was being squeezed with a force that was now becoming painful. The sweat was making it hard to grip. Again and again her hands slipped. Finally she found a purchase and tugged with all her might to prise them open.

It was an even match: Jodie’s thighs vs Nadia’s biceps. Eventually Jodie yielded. Nadia, victorious, claimed her prize. She ate her fiercely, her head bobbing rhythmically. Jodie relaxed, surrendered herself completely.

At last, as Jodie approached climax, arching her back and writhing, Nadia came down upon her face with her weight, her full labia devouring Jodie’s mouth. The pressure, and the odour of her cunt were almost suffocating. The kiss in the shower had been a preview of this moment, Jodie realised. They came simultaneously, convulsing and howling, then trembling and moaning, then almost sadly sighing.

They rolled off the bed to the floor, still in 69. Nadia banged her head on the wooden floorboards. “Ow! OWWW!! My fucking head!!” She wailed, half-laughing.

On the floor they lay giggling. They wrestled like kittens. A last they crawled back onto the bed and slept dreamlessly, Nadia lying on her front, with Jodie’s arm resting across her wide back.

*****

Six months later, Jodie still saw Nadia regularly. But she wouldn’t have called it a “relationship” (a word she detested). It was mainly sex. Incredible sex.

Besides Escort Göztepe the sex, though, there was not much going on, she told herself. Jodie had hated the Soho “scene” bar Nadia had taken her to. To be fair, Nadia admitted it wasn’t really her thing either. Nadia’s big love was football, which left Jodie completely cold. And Jodie couldn’t really talk about her work with Nadia. Yes, she decided, probably time to move in.

True, Nadia was kind and clever, and made her laugh.

And she’d showed her London.

Jodie had learned to enjoy the City, the way that only foreigners can.

Jodie wrote her Mother:

“London is like an old grey Casanova: Every so often it suddenly wakes from apathetic slumber to charm and seduce you, telling you tales of romance from its younger days.”

And there was that magic winter’s night, ice-skating outdoors at Somerset House. Nadia had never skated before.

The blue floor-lights and corny pop music in that stately Regency courtyard, the starlit sky and Nadia’s shining dark eyes all coalesced into a wistful kaleidoscope as Jodie skated around her awkward and laughing partner.

*****

But it was time for Jodie to move on. Her “career clock” was telling her so.

She’d met Peter, a soft-spoken, well-bred British hedge fund manager with over $100 million under management. He’d asked her to join his team as senior analyst. And he’d asked her to marry him. She’d agreed to both offers, but persuaded him that they should try living together first.

Nadia would understand. Besides, she and Nadia were so different, she told herself. She sighed. She hated hurting people.

*****

Sex with Peter was… okay. He was a little awkward to start with, explaining that he “hadn’t had relations” since his divorce. Jodie, younger but more imaginative and experienced, showed him a few tricks from her high-school days and her time with Doug:

She would suck his balls, sliding an oiled middle finger deep into his anus at the moment of orgasm.

Sometimes they would role-play, he playing the crooked fund manager, she pretending to be an auditor investigating his fund’s money-laundering activities: She would straddle him, scratching his nipples gently, gyrating slowly and crooning, “I’m willing to overlook this infraction if you fuck me up the ass right now.”

As his confidence regained, he started to become a better lover. Jodie still needed to tell him what do to give her pleasure, but she didn’t mind –actually she rather liked being in control.

She hated it when he hadn’t shaved.

*****

It was a year since she’d been with Peter. The fund wasn’t doing well at all. In fact it was going under. Peter started to drink to excess. Sometimes he would shut the door to his office and stand and stare for hours over the City, swaying slightly, a tumbler of 16-year-old Scotch in his hand.

One day Jodie lost patience. She marched in from her office, which adjoined his, and told him that he was a wimp, and if he didn’t have the balls for this game, he should “fuck off back to Mommy”.

*****

Jodie managed, almost single-handedly, to turn the fund’s fortunes around. Investor confidence returned.

Through a journalistic contact, she’d got Peter a weekly spot in the UK Outlook program on Bloomberg News, which was good for business. But Peter’s glumness now seemed to have become a permanent aspect of his nature.

*****

One rainy night, Jodie stayed late, telling Peter she’d be home by midnight. She was putting together a complex equity option strategy. She sat and analysed graphs, trawled historical price data. The calculations were highly involved. She typed in rapid staccatos on the keyboard, wrinkling her nose in concentration.

Then the screen froze.

She banged on the keys in frustration, hurled the mouse across the room and finally flopped back into her seat, clenching her fists. She leaned down to the computer’s on/off switch. Suddenly, a clear memory of a voice came to her:

“For some problems it’s best just to shut down and restart.”

She picked up the phone, and dialled Nadia’s home. Nadia picked up.

“Hello? …Hello? Hello?? Who is this?”

Jodie, unable to speak, burst in to tears.

“Hello? …Jodie?”

Jodie dropped the phone to the floor.

“Hello? JODIE? Is that you? Jodie where are you?”

Nadia arrived at the office half an hour later. Jodie ran to her as she emerged from the lift and buried her face in the shoulder of her rain-drenched jacket. Nadia held her, rocking her. In a muffled voice, Jodie laughed through her sobs, “You smell different!”

“New deodorant. Do you like it?”

“I could get used to it…”

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