Mark stared at a distant spot miles beyond the computer screen. Days after his performance review, fragments of the aftermath continued to float through his mind. Had he been too eager to leave his last job? Had he been so blinded by his friendship with Bill that he couldn’t see him and his wife, Lisa for what they really were? One thing he was very sure of: he’d done everything he could to make this current situation work.

As owners of Advanced Progressive Machining, Bill and Lisa had given him an ultimatum: commit to the company or find a new job. His pulse pounded in his temples. Lisa’s grating, shrill voice still rang in his ears. How could he put up with her for another day, let alone several years? He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands, hoping to push the throbbing headache away.

It didn’t work.

What had she said while they all sat around the conference table, her with that sneer, and Bill leaning back in his chair smiling as if he’d just won the lottery? “We need a long-term commitment from you. We’re thinking that twenty years is a reasonable request.”

Reasonable—for whom?

He remembered his shock and anger at their gall—or was it stupidity, or both? Whatever the name, or reason, he couldn’t agree to their terms. Not to twenty years—and especially not if they weren’t willing to put the agreement in writing. A two-year contract was one thing, but twenty? Verbally? With no reciprocating commitment from them? Did they think he was that stupid?

When Monday came around, they’d asked him for his decision. He had lied, and told them yes, he would commit to them and give them the best he could. He hoped it would buy him a little more time to be selective in finding a new job, so he wouldn’t have to take the first one that came along. He’d spent most of the last week calling his business contacts, and he knew that it would be just a matter of days before he’d have another offer. He’d decided to show them that he could run the company, be the general manager they’d hired, to show them his worth to the company, but not tell them he had made up his mind to leave.

He shook his head and tried to focus on the project he was supposed to be quoting and scheduling. Turning, he looked over his shoulder and saw Bill sitting at his desk. Mark couldn’t believe how they’d misled him. Not once in the initial interviews had they mentioned any commitments beyond the normal two to five years. Even Bill, who’d always come across as a realistic, if not understanding guy, had surprised Mark with his sudden change in attitude. Once Lisa turned the review negative, he’d jumped in and piled on.

Mark gritted his teeth so hard his jaws ached. He felt trapped—again. He hadn’t realized how much he hated working in an open office area, without even the modest privacy of cubicle walls, until he’d taken this job. What made it worse was his desk had been positioned in such a way that his back faced the room, and anyone could walk up behind him. He felt exposed. It seemed as if they didn’t trust him to work alone and had to see what he was doing at any given moment. Apparently, twenty-five years in the business wasn’t long enough to prove he knew the job, at least in their eyes.

As bad as all that was, the most difficult thing he had to handle was Lisa’s arrogant holier-than-thou attitude. She strutted around, spouting Bible verses like a smarmy televangelist, but when a problem arose she was the first one to spew a tirade of cuss words that would make a trucker blush. The hypocrisy of it all made Mark sick.

Turning back to the paperwork on his desk, the same questions repeated themselves for the thousandth time: had he subconsciously denied the obvious signs that should have been red flags when it came to justifying his move to a new job? Could this all have somehow been his fault?

He came to the same realization he had every time he played it over in his mind. He couldn’t change what had happened. He had to learn from his mistakes and move on. Pushing away from his desk, Mark left the office to get some air. The urge to lash out surged. He knew that if he opened his mouth, he wouldn’t stop until he was fired before he had any hope of lining up another offer.

He walked out of the main office and entered the shop, hoping to find some peace among the dull roar of the CNC machining centers. That didn’t happen. It was lunchtime and all the equipment sat idle. Mark sighed and wandered from machine to machine, pretending to check the status of the jobs in the shop. He didn’t want to tip his hand by not appearing interested in the output of the shop, especially to Lisa.

As he thumbed through a stack of papers, Mark heard a thump coming from the direction of the storage room on the mezzanine. He set the paperwork down and moved closer to the stairs. The thud repeated itself and he heard a muffled moan. He wasn’t completely sure, but the voice sounded like Dylan’s, the shop foreman. Concerned, Mark rushed up the steps, thinking him hurt.

At the top he stopped, frozen in place. Inside the tiny room was Dylan, but he wasn’t hurt, or alone. He leaned against a stack of boxes with his pants around his ankles. Lisa was on her knees in front of him with a fistful of the shop foreman’s cock in her hand and a thin line of saliva connecting her lower lip to the head of his cock.

He must have made some noise, because she then looked up at Mark with a wide-eyed gasp. He saw several things in that brief moment—fear, shock, and—unexpectedly—relief. That last facet shocked him the most. He stood in the doorway, staring at the woman who’d bragged incessantly about teaching Sunday school. Now, she was simply a woman with a drool-covered cock in her fist, a cock that didn’t belong to her husband. Most surprising, she didn’t seem mortified at his catching her.

Dumbfounded, Mark didn’t know what to do. Finally, he turned around and walked down the stairs as though in a trance. The last thing on Earth he’d expected to see was Lisa giving the shop foreman a blowjob.