Black Box

Author’s notes: This story series will take place in the same “pornographic universe” as my other two series, Wish Box and A Nice Apology. It might not appear to be a mind control story at first. But give it a few chapters and things will start to unfold.

Chapter 1.

No one dreams of becoming an accountant. This is maybe not a fact, but it was something I used to tell myself as I stared into the mirror in the mornings. My name is Peter, and this is a story about how a series of highly improbable or even magical, events turned my life completely upside down.

But let me start at the beginning. I grew up in foster care with my uncle, who happened to be a lousy card playing semi-drunk looser. In the end though, he did offer a roof over my head and always managed to put food on the table somehow. I quickly learned to take care of myself though, and also, I found already at an early age that I had a knack for numbers and puzzles. I thrived in school until I reached my teens when other stuff than being able to memorize the most numbers of decimals in PI started to become important. In high-school I was the odd kid that no one wanted to hang out with but I can’t say I was bullied in any way. These were also the years when I discovered computers and I spent most my time learning every bit about both how they were built and how to program them. By my senior year I was an accomplished hacker and had also started to make programs that made probability calculations to solve hugely advanced math problems.

I had my mind set on going to college on a part scholarship when disaster struck. My deadbeat uncle finally gambled too much above his limit and the week before my graduation he was declared bankrupt and to my distress I found he had cleared out all my savings too in order to pay off his bookies. To make a long story short, instead of going to college and possibly becoming a math’s Professor, I was forced to take a crappy job to help pay off his debts. These guys were not to be played with and they somehow considered me responsible for the debts too.

My uncle had a friend who owned an accounting firm. I never knew the exact details of how they knew each other, but since we were desperately searching for any opportunity to pay off the debts, my uncle explained my aptitude for numbers to him, and I was offered a job. I knew something was shady because one part of my already shitty salary went directly to the bookies in order to keep them from coming after us, and I never knew how long I would be forced to work there.

Fast forward to the day where my life would start to turn upside down. I took a deep breath and shut off the alarm on my phone. It was 6.30 in the morning and I forced myself out of bed and started my morning routine. As always, I stared into the mirror while brushing my teeth and repeated my mantra, “No one, dreams of becoming an accountant!” For almost a year I had worked this job and I still didn’t know if I would ever be free. My uncle had moved out of the apartment and we had more or less fallen out of contact, but I was still paying for his debts. It took me over an hour to reach the office, which was good because it gave me time to calm down and to focus. I needed to do a good job and I had hopes that one day not too far from now I would be able to start saving for college again.

Despite the situation I was in, part of me felt lucky I ended up working with numbers at least, even though the tasks felt very menial and simple to me. My boss, Mr. Williams, was a short fat and balding man but an overall good guy. He treated everyone well and it seems that no one else but he knew about the arrangement with the bookies. Unfortunately for me, I was not working directly with Mr. Williams.

I was the assistant, or personal errand boy, to his wife Sarah, who was also the senior accountant at the firm. I was thrilled at first when I learned I would be working with Mrs. Williams. She was an absolutely gorgeous woman, although stiff and dare I say boring. Tall, blonde and with a voluptuous body she was quite the contrast to her husband. She really lived up to the stereotype of an accountant though. She always dressed conservatively and behaved like a prude. However, that still didn’t stop me from admiring her body and she quickly turned into one of my main inspirations when masturbating. I would often beat off to the image of her wonderful tits or the thought of her full red lips wrapped around my throbbing cock.

It didn’t take me long to learn that she could be sort of a bitch though. She had an aura of superiority, especially when her husband wasn’t around, and she would make huge scenes out of the smallest mistakes. I don’t know what issues she had with me, but I seemed to really tick her off, even when I delivered flawless work for her. Deep down I think she felt a resentment towards me for being so good at number and having such attention to details. Rumors around the office was that she only got the management job by sleeping with Mr. Williams and now she was using everyone else to cover for her own short comings.

Today started no different than any other day. I greeted my colleges by the coffee machine while Mrs. Williams was busy throwing papers around by the printers, acting like a true drama queen.

“Don’t just stand there,” she snapped as soon as she noticed me, “didn’t I tell you to leave the files for my meeting on my desk yesterday?” she continued and shuffled around in the mess of papers around the printer.

“I put them right there,” I said casually and walked into her office. I put aside one of her women’s magazines that was spread open on her desk and picked up the pile of folders that I had left for her. I turned around just in time to see her storm into the office and she quickly ripped the folders right out of my hands.

“Don’t be a smartass…” she huffed as she placed the folders in her briefcase and hurried out the door.

She was obviously late for a meeting again, and once she was out the door you could hear the office come to life again and I got a few knowing nods and smiles from my other co-workers. I think they all appreciated that I had become the main target for her little rage attacks, while they managed to stay under her radar. With her gone and my list of tasks for the day being so simple I managed to wrap everything urgent up in an hour or two, so I felt I had some time to play with my little secret project.

After I had realized I wouldn’t be getting any real challenging work at this place, and knowing I would go mad if my brain stayed unstimulated, I had secretly installed one of my programs on the company server and every once in a while, when I had the opportunity, I was running an experiment trying to figure out a way to find book keeping errors or other mistakes. I figured that such a program could be valuable and I would most likely be able to both pay off my uncle’s debts, and get myself through college if I could sell it.

Today, I was running a search and while I was waiting for the program to finish, I was pretending to sort the next stack of files for Mrs. William’s next big meeting. I wasn’t surprised to find a long list of mistakes once the search was done. But what did catch my attention was that a lot of them were connected to the same client. Usually there would be one or two mistakes per account, but in this case my program had found over ten thousand errors. I adjusted the search and ran it again to make sure it wasn’t my program that was the cause and in the second run the list had grown to over a million errors.

They were tiny fractions of errors and it dawned upon me that someone could be running a scheme here. I remember reading about penny shaving but never figured someone would be stupid enough to try that today. Digging deeper I could find that all errors were indeed connected to the same client, an Italian exporter of rare goods, and to my horror I could also trace everything back to one user account, mine.

I could feel a chill down my spine as I verified the user name, but then I noticed something odd. The errors dated way back, to one week before I had received my access information. My mind was now set to solve this puzzle and it didn’t take me long to access log-files and trace the user login to a specific computer at the office. To my amazement, I found it all originated from Mrs. William’s office. I stared in disbelief at the screen for a good while before I methodically started to download a copy of it all to a USB drive and stored it as evidence. If this was fraud, it could mean the end for the company, and most likely the guilty people would end up in jail.

It crossed my mind that this could be my ticket out of here, but before I went ahead with something rash, I wanted to make sure I wasn’t mistaken. I quickly removed my program from the server and made sure all traces of it were gone, I then took the USB drive home and spent all evening analyzing the data. It took me well past midnight to verify it all, but it looked solid, there was no doubt that someone ran a penny shaving scheme and it all originated from Mrs. William’s computer. I made a few copies of my data before I went to bed, but I hardly got any sleep that night. My mind was too busy running scenarios on how to proceed with the information.

My head felt like a hardboiled egg about to crack when I woke up, but as I made my way into work my mind was made up. Once at the office I hurried through the lobby and knocked on the door to Mr. William’s office. I usually never talked to him in private so he did look a bit surprised as I stepped in and closed the door. I assumed, since the bookies my uncle got in trouble with received parts of my salary, Mr. William was connected to them somehow, and the last thing I needed was to get into more trouble by implicating his wife in some advanced scheme. That’s why I figured I would give him the evidence, and let him handle it.

“Mr. Williams,” I started, sounding way more confident than I expected, “I have something to show you.”

“I’m sure one of the accountants can help you,” he interrupted, and gave me a stern look.

“No, I think this matter requires your attention personally,” I continued and carefully placed the USB drive on his desk.

“What’s this?” he asked and took the drive in his hand and examined it.

“Just have a look at the files on it, and I will explain,” I said, and took a step back from his desk and nervously pocketed my hands to help me stay calm. Mr. Williams shrugged and planted the drive in his computer and turned a serious face as he started to browse the files.

“I found these errors by mistake,” I said, not feeling comfortable telling him about my little experimental software that had been searching through the company servers. I had erased all traces of it already, and felt pretty sure no one could find evidence of it. Mr. Williams’s expression turned even more serious as he kept browsing the data.

“As you can see, there’s a pattern to these mistakes. They were obviously planted there,” I continued, “and they seem to implicate myself, but as you see on the dates, this started before I received access to the system.”

Mr. Williams still stared at the screen with a stern look on his face and only broke away to look right at me for a second when I went on to explain the final parts of my findings. “I’m afraid, there is no doubt that this originated from your wife’s computer,” I said and I could see him start to look furious as he most likely realized the data was correct. He let out a deep sigh and finally spoke to me.

“I assume you want something for this information,” he said in a stone-cold voice and stared right at me.

“No, please listen,” I said, my voice shaking, “that’s not why I’m here. I just want you to know that I had nothing to do with it. What you do with the information is none of my business.”

“Alright then,” he said with a huff, but just as he was about to continue his eyes darted to the screen again and his face went pale.

“What account is this again?” he said with a cough, and his fingers furiously smattered over his keyboard as he seemed to search for something. He finally leaned back in his chair and gently bumped a fist into his forehead several times, his face still pale, almost as if he had seen a ghost.

“Have you shown this to anyone else Peter?” he asked and looked up at me.

“No, and you have the only copy,” I said, knowing I would get rid of all my copies as soon as I got home. I wanted nothing to do with this mess.

“That’s good,” he said, “and I’m sorry Peter, but I will have to let you go. Don’t worry about your uncle’s debt, that will all be taken care of. You just go home now, and never come back here again. Do you understand?”

“I honestly don’t,” I said, as a sense of panic started to build, “but I hear you, I won’t be back.”

With that I left the office without a word to anyone. On my way home that sense of panic kept growing but then slowly faded as I was coming to terms with what had happened. I was finally free from the debts, and if I could only find a new job I could start to save up for college. I spent the day home, working some more on my software, to make sure I really had the right data, but I couldn’t find anything wrong with it. The next day I started looking up job opportunities and even started to look at some college applications. I few days later I had my first interviews scheduled and I was happily watching TV after dinner when my phone rang. I picked it up, assuming it was some random sales call, but to my surprise it was Mr. Williams calling.

“Peter,” he said, “I believe I was a bit hasty last we spoke. I need you back at the office, right now. It’s important, so I have called for a taxi to come pick you up. Be ready in five minutes.”

“But,” I started to protest but realized he had already hung up on me. I figured this was bad, but also realized I probably didn’t have much choice. I had to show up, so I made my way down to the street, and soon a taxi came to pick me up and drove me to the office. Once there, the building seemed empty as I made my way through the downstairs lobby, but as I stepped out the elevator, I saw a bunch of people sitting in our large conference room.

Both Mr. and Mrs. Williams were there, together with two men in suits, and a woman that looked, in lack of a better comparison, like a Bond villain’s henchwoman. She was tall with long red hair in a pony tail, and an athletic body that was wrapped in black leather pants, high heel boots and a tight leather top that when she turned to look at me, I realized showed off an impressive cleavage.

“Come in here kid,” the older of the two men said. He spoke with some foreign accent and I figured that if the redhead was the henchwoman, this was most likely the villain. I quickly looked at Mr. Williams and saw that he had a serious look on his face and Mrs. Williams just stared down into the table.

“Why is he here,” she whispered at Mr. Williams, barely moving her lips as she spoke.

“Just be quiet you fool,” he whispered back at her, “don’t you realize what you’ve done.”

“Shut up, the both of you,” the other man said and both Mr. and Mrs. Williams froze and went silent.

“I don’t take people stealing from me lightly,” the old man continued, “and especially not when you try to play me for a fool.”

“I am sorry! We will pay back every cent,” Mr. Williams pleaded.

“That you will,” the old man said, and turned towards him, “with interest.”

“You will have my money transferred tomorrow, and then I don’t want to hear from you again, ever. I’ll be taking over this company, and I expect your resignation in writing before you leave. Is that clear?”

“Yes, of course,” Mr. Williams sighed, but almost looked relieved as the old man now turned towards me.

“You’re the kid that found out about their little scheme?” he said and looked straight at me.

“Mhm yes,” I mumbled, “yes Sir I mean.”

“It’s Mr. Salvio,” the old man said and reached out to shake my hand, “and you did good. Tell me, how was it that you discovered this anyways, and tell me the truth now.”

I figured lying to this guy would be a huge mistake so I decided to come clean. “I was just testing a program I’m working on,” I started and I heard Mr. Williams grumble but before he could speak up the other man gave him an angry look and he fell silent again.

“It found all the small errors in the books, too small to be noticed by the accountants, and when I traced it, I found out that it was planted there by someone using my account,” I continued.

“So, it was you then?” the old man asked with a raised brow and a small grin.

“No,” I almost screamed, my voice cracking, “it was planted even before I started here, by her!” I said and pointed at Mrs. Williams.

“Relax kid,” Mr. Salvio chuckled, “she’s already told us, which is good. If it’s one thing I hate, it’s a liar.”

The whole room fell silent now, and I swear I could hear the drops of sweat that were sliding down the side of my face.

“But I like you,” Mr. Salvio said in a loud voice that made me almost jump where I stood, “and I think I could make use of someone with your talents. I want you to take over for Mr. Williams here, and put full focus on developing that program. Show me what it really can do.”

“What, I can’t run a business,” I cried out, again with a cracked voice.

“Ah, don’t worry, Sarah will be here to assist you, won’t you?” the old man said and turned to look at her. She looked honestly confused and turned to her husband.

“Didn’t you say we could leave?” she said with a soft voice that was a huge contrast to the bitchy tone she normally used around the office.

“I said he could leave,” the old man said and pointed to Mr. Williams, “but you will stay right here where we can keep an eye on you.”

“Honey please,” she almost cried and reached for Mr. Williams’s hand, “can’t you do something?”

“Stop it,” Mr. Williams hissed at her, “just do as you are told.”

The old man let out a grunt and then took me by the arm and led me out of the conference room. “I have high hopes for you kid,” he said and smiled as we walked towards the elevator, “you make sure to keep working on that program. I will give you a call when I need your services, and we can put it to another little test. Meanwhile, enjoy your time here, and don’t worry about the practicalities. Sarah will take care of everything for you.”

The two men disappeared into the elevator and the woman followed Mr. Williams into his office. I took a seat in the couch out by the lobby and waited, throwing glances over towards the conference room where Mrs. Williams sat motionless resting her head in her palms. There was an eerie silence in the office that only broke when the woman emerged from Mr. Williams’s office with a bunch of folders under her arm. Seconds later I felt my phone buzz in my pocket as I received an e-mail. I quickly opened it and gasped as I read.

This was a message to all employees from Mr. Williams, telling us that the company had received unexpected expenses and would be shut down, everyone would receive their notices in separate e-mails. The woman made her way back into the conference room, where she leaned in close to Mrs. Williams and whispered something in her ear and then nodded towards me.

I couldn’t make out a word they said, but the woman just kept smiling as Mrs. Williams nodded and stared blankly into the glass wall in front of her. Their conversation ended just as Mr. Williams came out from his office carrying two briefcases, and wearing his coat, obviously ready to leave.

“You have no one to blame here but yourself,” he said, as he stopped by the door to the conference room, “just do as your told now for once in your life.”

He then left, setting his briefcases down with two loud thumps as the elevator doors closed. I stared in disbelief as the henchwoman walked past me moments later and gave me a quick wink and flashed me a smile. “Have fun,” she said once the elevator came back up and she left, leaving me alone in the office with Mrs. Williams.

“I sure hope you know what you’ve gotten us into here,” she said and stormed out of the conference room and started to pace around the lobby.

“Me?” I said, still in disbelief, “you’re the one that stole money from the damn mob, or whoever they are, and tried to frame me for it,” I screamed at her. This made her silent, but she kept pacing around the room.

“Looks to me like you got off easy anyways,” I grumbled. I started to feel more and more annoyed with her but she didn’t seem to hear me at all, but as I was about to leave, she ran up and pulled my arm.

“No, you can’t leave,” she said, sounding almost out of breath as she stared at me. I don’t know exactly what it was, but she had an almost dazed look on her face. I thought she was just scared at first but her expression quickly turned to a frown as I pulled my arm free and pushed the elevator button.

“I’m out of here,” I said with a sigh.

“No wait,” she almost screamed now, and I turned to look at her again.

“You don’t understand, these people are powerful,” she said and hesitated briefly, “and they want me to do something, that I’ll need your help with.”

“Sorry, but I’m not interested,” I said, “you’re the one that got us both into this mess,” and turned towards the elevator as the doors opened.

“Please, I need to send them some pictures,” she said with a sigh just as I was about to enter the elevator, “with cum on my face.”

The office went completely silent as the elevator doors closed in front of me. I couldn’t believe what I just heard, and I turned and stared at her where she stood with her arms folded.

“What?” I exhaled, almost in a cough.

“You heard me,” she said, “I need to send them pictures, and I need you to, you know, provide the…” she continued but trailed off, and just waved her hand in front of her face.

“Are you crazy?” I managed to reply with a stutter.

“No, but apparently they are,” she replied.

“Can you do it or not?” she said, with an almost impatient tone in her voice, “they need the pictures now.”

“What? Right here?” My voice trembled and I looked around nervously in the room.

“I’ll sit over there,” she said and nodded towards the couch in the lobby. “Just take it out and make sure some of it gets on my face.” She then went over and sat on the couch and planted her hands in her lap. This was all so surreal I didn’t know what to do, so I just kept staring at her.

“Don’t just stand there,” she snapped at me, “get over here.”

“This is absurd,” I managed to reply, as I made my way closer to her. In my mind I knew I had fantasized about her almost every night for the past year, but here and now in real life I didn’t know if I could do it, especially not like this.

“Just do it, and be quick about it,” she said as I came up to stand just in front of her.

“You’re just going to sit there?” I said, still feeling extremely uncomfortable.

“They never said anything about touching you,” she snapped, “I’m pretty sure you can manage yourself.”

My mind started to race. How could she be some calm about this? She was asking me to jerk off right in front of her, and come on her face, like she was asking me to bring a cup of coffee or something. I figured I should just leave while I had the chance, and never come back again, but the displeased look on her face as I hesitated reminded me of all those times that she had given me shit over the past year. If I could plant a load on her face before I left, who was I to complain? Looking down at her pretty face and her big blue eyes I slowly started to feel my dick stir in my pants. I was almost in trance as I reached down to open my pants and I slowly pulled out my semi erect cock.

“Good, now hurry up,” Mrs. Williams said and looked right up at me.

I slowly started to pull at my member, sliding my hand along the soft skin. I usually jerked off in the evenings at home, watching porn on my computer and taking my time to really enjoy it. This was different though. I felt almost guilty and pressured to cum and with Mrs. Williams just sitting there the whole situation was just so weird. To my distress, I noticed my cock failed to grow and I was just wanking at an almost limp dick.

“Can you please hurry up,” she said after a while, “I really need those pictures.”

“This is just so strange,” I said in a low voice, as I started to feel even more ashamed, I was also getting a bit angry with her, this was after all her fault, and she was the one that needed this. Why should I feel bad?

“It would be easier if you helped out,” I said, and let go of my dick, and let my hands rest on my sides.

“Seriously?” she replied with a stern voice and glared up at me.

“Yeah, you either help out or I’m leaving,” I said, as I made my mind up that this wasn’t worth it. I expected her to refuse but to my surprise she let out a deep sigh and then reached out and first unbuckled my pants completely and then pulled them down together with my shorts.

“I suppose this will be quicker,” she said with a frown and then I felt one of her soft hands curl up against my dick and then slide down to cup my balls. I wasn’t a virgin, but the few encounters I have had so far was under covers in a dark bedroom, so the sensation of her smooth hands took me by complete surprise. This continued as I felt her other hand wrap around my shaft and slowly pulled back my foreskin. I started to grow with just a few strokes and with her other hand gently curled around my balls I felt jolts of pleasure spread all the way from my toes up to my spinning head. I was rock hard in seconds, sporting my full seven-inch erection. Her fingers just made it around my thick shaft as she kept pumping me and I swear she almost seemed impressed of my size as she ran her fingers up and down its full length.

I can’t say I have much of a reference, but from watching porn I figured my cock was at least over average in size, without being huge, and I also seemed to produce very large amounts of semen. These thoughts reminded me of what was to come and I heard myself let out a soft moan as I imagined my cock moving from Mrs. Williams hands to her lips. Maybe she would let me rub it against her lips?

“Good, now we need the pictures, Mrs. Williams said and let go of my cock for a moment and handed me her phone.

“Here take a few when I hold you like this,” she said and then reached out and held my cock right in front of her face. I snapped off a few pictures, my cock twitching as she shifted her pose under it. She wet her lips with her tongue and held it so close to her mouth I could almost feel her breath. With her hand still stroking me she moved her mouth even closer and gently brushed her full red lips against the tip. I managed to take a few more pictures before I almost started shaking. My hips jerked forward but she tilted her head to the side making my dick slide up against her left cheek.

“That’s enough,” she said, “now let’s finish you in my hands and then we make sure some of it gets on my face,” and started to pump my cock with her fist again.

“I can do it. I’m close,” I panted and reached for my shaft. She let go and put her hands together to form a little bowl in front of me as I started to stroke my cock with my free hand. One hand still held the phone and I snapped off another few pictures before I felt my legs almost buckle and I was ready to cum.

I finally exploded, and the first loads of cum flew past her hands and splashed right into her face. Mrs. Williams flinched and quickly shut her eyes and rolled in her lips, curling up her face in a grimace as I kept spraying her with my cum. I managed to snap off a few more pictures but all were out of focus, but once my orgasm ended, I finally got a few good pictures with my dick hovering just above her cum covered face. I carefully moved my dick forward just a bit and braced her lips with the tip as I emptied the last of my load. She carefully opened her eyes and used a hand to wipe the cum from around her mouth and I took a few more pictures from different angles, as my load dripped down her face onto her blouse.

“We’re done,” she finally said in a low voice and used her jacket sleeve to wipe the rest of her face.

“I told you to come in my hands!” she said with a grunt.

“I didn’t know I’d come so hard,” I panted and moved back a bit and pulled up my pants.

“You got it all over me,” she said and got up from the couch waving her hands around in the air. She went for the bathroom and as I stood there the realization of what had just happened hit me. I have had my first ever handjob, and almost blowjob, and I shot my load all over the face of Mrs. Williams. I even held evidence of it in my hand. I quickly opened her e-mail client and sent a copy of all pictures to my private email address. This, I figured, would be all the porn I would need for a foreseeable future.

Mrs. Williams came back out moments later, with her face clean and not wearing makeup any more. She quickly grabbed her phone and I assumed she sent the pictures to Mr. Salvio. I knew my dick was in some of those shots, but I doubted it could be used against me. At least my face wasn’t in any of them so I didn’t worry too much about it. She then flinched again and screamed at me, “where did you send these?”

“Relax,” I said, “those are just for myself.”

She looked furious as she left for the elevator but didn’t say another word. I was still in disbelief as I made my way home later. My mind tried to wrap itself around what had happened and even though I shouldn’t complain about getting a handjob, and giving my bitch of a boss a facial, I was cynical enough to assume this would come back and bite me in the ass one day. Once home, I had a long warm shower before I sat down and flipped through the pictures. I knew that if they were still on the phone by the time I woke up the next morning it at least hadn’t been just a weird dream.

I slept like a baby that night and woke up still on my couch when my alarm went off in the morning. I was almost done with my normal morning routine when I remembered what had happened, and quickly checked my phone to see if the pictures were still there. I clenched my fist and smiled, and surprised myself by shouting out a small victory cry, as I found them still there. This wasn’t some dream. I was pulled back to reality as my phone made a little noise. I had received an e-mail.

Slowly, as I clicked to open the inbox, I started to realize that this also meant everything else had happened too. Some crazy old gangster now expected me to run an accounting firm for him, without any staff, and as I feared the e-mail was from Mr. Salvio. “Congratulations on helping Sarah with her little task last night. Be sure to go by the office today, we have a delivery for you.”

I felt another shill down my spine as I read the e-mail. I feared I had now gone from working off my uncle’s gambling debts to working for what was probably the mob, and I had no clue what to do. I considered going to the police but figured someone like Mr. Salvio would lawyer up pretty well and I would most likely be in even more trouble. There was something else that bothered me too. This whole situation just seemed too impossible. What are the odds something like this could happened? This kept grinding in my head as I made my way into the office. I hardly even realized I WAS going to the office, as my mind kept repeating the scenario. Once there, I was sure I was missing something, and as I stepped out from the elevator my suspicions fell directly on a certain female manager.

“Oh, good, you’re here,” Mrs. Williams said as she came out from her office, “there was a delivery for you. It’s in George’s old office, I assumed you would take over his room,” she continued, without a hint of hesitation in her voice.

“Alright, I’ll check it out,” I said, with a raised brow. How could she be so cold about me taking over her husband’s office, I wondered. Maybe she had just used him to get a job, and his money, but shouldn’t she be worried about losing her job now? The questions kept repeating as I made my way into the room that was now apparently mine. There were five large boxes on the floor and from what I could tell they most likely contained computers. This actually distracted me from my thoughts and as I started to rummage through the boxes Mrs. Williams cleared her throat.

“I have checked our financials and if we keep minimal salaries, we should be able to stay afloat for at least six months,” she started but my mind was focused on the boxes and I didn’t care to reply. I really hadn’t planned to stay anyways.

“If there’s nothing else, I’ll be back later after lunch. You have my cellphone number if Mr. Salvio calls,” she continued, and swiftly left before I had a chance to protest. Not that it mattered now. I was busy unpacking and assembling a state-of-the-art computer system, and it took me all morning to get everything up and running. With this system I would be able to take my program to the next level, and I assumed this was Mr. Salvio’s plan. But this still didn’t explain everything that had happened and over lunch my mind came back to the improbability of it all, and I remembered the suspicion I felt earlier meeting Mrs. Williams.

I had expected her to be at least a bit uncomfortable having me around after what had happened yesterday, but she didn’t seem to care at all, and the way she had so easily moved me into her husband’s office made me sure there was something wrong. As always when faced with a puzzle my mind went all in, and with the help of my new super computer I started to run a thorough background check on my dear old boss Sarah Williams.

I can’t say I was surprised to find out that Sarah Williams didn’t exist. At least there were no traces of her before she started at the company. She seemed to have come out of the blue and within a year she was married to George Williams, and acting accounting manager. But before that, there was nothing. I saved all my findings in a folder and like last time I also saved a copy on a USB drive that I put in my pocket. I hadn’t even started to think about what this meant, or what to do with this information, when I heard the elevator doors open and the sound of heels clicking against the hard wood floor of the lobby.

I went to check and saw Mrs. Williams casually stride past me, holding a latte in one hand and a few shopping bags in the other. I stared at her in disbelief as she went into her office. She had changed her outfit too I noticed. She was now wearing a black skirt that ended just in line with her knees with a matching black blazer that really hugged her figure and from a quick glance it looked like her blouse had the top buttons open. Her blonde hair, usually tied up in a tight bun, was flying free in wavy locks. It was almost like looking at a different person.

I stepped into her office and found her stashing her shopping bags away in a corner, her shapely ass poking straight out as she bent over and carefully placed the bags up against the wall. I had never seen her in heels before, and now she wore red and black stilettos, extending her already long legs even further.

“You went shopping?” I said just as she straightened up. She turned to look at me, “we don’t have any clients anymore, so why not?” she said with another shrug.

“I suppose that’s true,” I said, realizing she was right, “but I assume they expect something of us?”

“Did Mr. Salvio give you any instructions yet?” she asked.

“No,” I said, a bit hesitant, “just that I should be here and pick up the computer.”

“Good,” she said, “until he tells you more, I suggest you wait and keep quiet,” she said and sat down behind her desk.

“Who is he anyways?” I asked, after staring at her for a while again. She was flipping through her phone now and looked up at me quickly, with a slight frown.

“I don’t know, someone you don’t mess with,” she said, but I again got a feeling she wasn’t telling me the truth.

“You don’t know,” I asked and took a step further into her office, “you seem to handle this thing a bit too well if you ask me. You have to know something.”

“Well, no-one DID ask you,” she said in a quick mocking tone, and gave me an angry look that I knew all too well. This time, however, I was not going to back down. Mr. Salvio said he wanted me to run the place and I wouldn’t need Mrs. William around to help with my program. I could do that on my own.

“Drop the act or get the hell out of here,” I snapped. I don’t know who looked the most surprised, me or her, but as I hesitated and went quiet her expression quickly went back to her angry frown.

“Who the hell do you think you are,” she said, almost in a laugh, but gave me a piercing look.

“Who I am?” I said, my voice still shaking, “the question is who you are.” This cut her next sentence off and her gloating smile quickly faded.

“I think you know what I’m talking about,” I continued, not wanting to give her time for another outburst. “I just ran a pretty thorough background check on you, so I know you’re not really Sarah Williams.” I folded my arms and watched her as she started to shift nervously in her seat. The room went silent and I think for the first time since I met her, she was speechless.

“You have two options,” I pressed on, “you either come clean and tell me exactly what the hell is going on here, or I’ll just call Mr. Salvio and ask him.”

“It’s not that simple,” she sighed and then fell silent. It was obvious she wouldn’t tell me more so I reached for my phone and quickly dialed Mr. Salvio and put the phone on speaker. She was about to protest but fell silent when someone picked up.

“Why are you calling me kid?” I heard the old man say, with an annoyed voice.

“Because I need to understand what’s happening,” I said. “Sarah, if that’s even her real name, won’t explain and I can’t do this if I don’t know all the variables,” I continued.

“You surprise me again kid,” I heard the old man say after a moment, “I see you can do research too. You might be even more valuable than I first thought.”

“I am sorry,” I said in reply, “can you please tell me what is going on here?”

“Ah, you deserve the truth kid, and I can see there’s no fooling you.”

After a short break Mr. Salvio continued. “You see, Sarah is a con-woman, a fraud, and a thief. She finally stole from the wrong person and I’m keeping her as an asset for now.”

“When I found out about how your program had caught her idiotic little scheme, I was intrigued,” he continued.

“So, you only used my account to cover your own ass?” I asked, and looked up at Mrs. Williams.

“It was meant to cover my tracks,” she replied and Mr. Salvio let out another chuckle.

“I knew you were smart kid,” he said, “so I expect you know what I want with you now.”

“You want me to develop my program so you can use it in, whatever it is you do?” I asked.

“Like I said, you’re clever,” he replied. “I want you to keep working on that program and make it undetectable. If you’re in, you will have the best equipment available, and you’ll be well rewarded of course.”

“If I’m in? You mean I have a choice?” I said, careful not to sound too excited, “what happens if I refuse?”

“I won’t lie to you,” he said now in a more serious voice, “I would be very disappointed if you did, but in the end, it is up to you kid.”

I was so relieved to know I could have a way out that a part of me wanted to just turn and run. Mrs. Williams must have seen that I was about to leave and gave me a serious look and shook her head.