After Weasel dropped us at SeaTac and we’d boarded the plane, our flight home was typical for us: like our first flight together and the one to Vancouver, we quickly fell hard asleep snuggled into each other, albeit I think I beat Andy to the drop. We remained asleep the whole, long flight apart from food as we were now on a come down from Washup’s high.
Walking to the luggage, we spied the café and unthinkingly made a beeline for it. However, it was Soy Cappuccinos instead of hot chocolate albeit with the usual marshmallows, and we had to consume it all there as, with our luggage, we didn’t have free hands. He selfied a picture of us with the unmolested doodle board to Wing which I thought was cute, but we were still tired from the flight and knew we had a long day ahead.
The Pests filmed us coming into arrivals, then into the taxi, where we fell hard asleep again, much to their chagrin. Unfortunately, we wouldn’t have time for a nap before heading out for TLS.
They decided to film us doing our hot change, which we thought was fair game. In the Suites’ room, I noticed a package on the bed, which we opened, and It was a pair of Ellie’s Rat T-shirts. “They look good," I mused wanting to wear it to the formal dinner.
Andy was standing behind me snuggled in, so his chest touched my back, “Cat better for tomorrow?” he replied, rubbing his head on mine, referring to Wing’s gifts now in our bags. I wanted to kiss him for taking me down so gently but settled for snuggling my head and back on deeper, feeling his soft breaths.
Staying at The Chalet meant we had done all our washing, so I grabbed a dark blouse and culottes, and he extracted dark grey chinos and a navy shirt. Unthinking, we pinned our Formals on, this was our sole adornment, Sadly, we couldn’t do our normal assisted changing, but it meant that we knocked it off quicker!
Walking into the Dinner Party after yet another taxi snooze, I felt unexplainedly quite listless, but I had my love at my side, as usual fingertip apart, not holding hands. We walked through the door to the chattering crowd, and they greeted and then trailed us as we headed to the bar for a drink. He sensed my mood and poured apple juices for a sugar boost, which we necked, followed by the average prosecco, though the brides sensed I was off, and they asked me how I was.
“Honestly, I feel fucked,” I responded rather too honestly for my liking. They gathered in, trying to separate me from him anticipating some hot titbits, but I pulled him in and headed for the sofa as I wanted him at my side so I could deliver my tofu straight from the packet.
It was interesting to observe that several couples were physically quite separate, several touched and we, as usual, had a slight gap, like our friends did. Sally did the usual blatant pash on her man!
Again, they probed, with the guys looking sympathetically at him, wondering what he was going to be hit with, but he just rubbed his soothing hand over my back with a blank look on his face. “You know when you’ve had a night when there was a tasty buffet, and you’ve really enjoyed it?” I asked, eliciting mostly blank looks, though Lindsay and Tony leaned in intrigued, and I wondered whether they were visualising one of the dinner pictures we’d DM’d them. “But the next morning you feel like you hit it too hard?” I postulated.
“So, you pigged out on holiday?” Joanne asked.
“We had lots of good food, but in the sessions, I feasted on a very wide and rich table of knowledge,” I summarised, and our friends smiled knowingly.
“Somewhat tamer than normal, but still a tasty feast,” Andy shrugged, briefly rubbing his knee on mine as there had been no cowering or really heated discussions like in several events. This triggered us remembering the tasty kitchen feasts early on.
I realised that my summation of the week had really confused most of the group. “It was a time to learn what needed learning from Patagonia, and I had the most to learn, which I did, thanks to a lot of very good teachers. And one especially good one,” I briefly pushed into his side as our friends smirked, but the others were long lost by the metaphors.
“Did you enjoy yourself?” Joanne asked
How dim is this bird? I visualised Weasel and knew that Angie’s comment would be lethally cutting. “You saw the pics: four times the number in Patagonia, same quality of food, amazing skiing. I’ve got a good guide,” my hand went up his back and he dinged me, eliciting a pleasant 6.5/10 flinch, “I’ve never skied so hard but so enjoyably. It was work but very enjoyable work.”
“Bat and Cen,” Tony intoned deeply as Lindsay sniggered, “Those cakes looked sooo tasty, took you ages?”
“With the three of us, just an hour to bake, then another hour to ice, though we were the navvies of the kids!” I replied smiling at the memory of them bossing us around to supply the various coloured icings!
We were dry and our friends got up, escorting us to the bar and playfully ribbing us about our time. I wondered whether the crew had done the edit down on the supplied footage, then we got more drinks, but we could hear normal play had resumed on the sofas, so we stayed there chatting.
The dinner was the same as last time, more booze which we initially partook partly to keep with the group, but they were getting rather annoying and we really just wanted to curl up on the sofa and do the crossword. As usual, we made brief physical contact, and brief back touches and dings were the most frequent as for us and they are both soothing and intimate. For us, drunken idiots kill our interest in more booze, so we kept to water for the rest of the night. The food was the usual and like most of the brides: glamorous but lacking in substance. Like the last Dinner and unlike our dinners at Whistler and Patagonia, sadly there was really just the one, tedious angle and we felt on the outside, rather than being pulled in like I definitely was in there. At least we’re together: that’s all that matters, I thought, feeling his discrete hand on my hip, knowing that he felt the same way too as we loved each other in many ways and forms.
We were glad when the dinner ended as I was annihilated from Washup, exacerbated by the dinner’s boredom and he sensed it, but I was content as he was with me, and he seemed to have less energy than normal too. Back at The Suites, we had a quick, but very loving shower, then collapsed into bed.
The next morning, as expected the crew filmed us in bed and we were our usual, sleepy selves. He worked his magic on the coffee machine, albeit clothed this time and silently and unusually for us, seated separately and ate our breakfast due to our tiredness, despite their goading. They dropped two fat envelopes on the table, and we knew their contents: the Photo Challenge. We’d discussed this several times and neither of us was mad about it. He was especially apathetic about it, but we’d done our usual Dispute Resolution Hug, and he slyly observed “I’ve got a way to be true, but keep them happy,” and we playfully kissed an agreement, not that we needed much excuse for a kiss.
We rose and he opened his envelope and quickly flicked through the contents, dumping them into a very small pile and a much larger pile on the table, then he turned to the camera as I watched on and pronounced his decision. He put Lindsay and Joanne separately on the table, then turned around and gently pushed me against the wall and playfully scruffed my hair which solicited a scowl from me, then stepped back. “Perfect,” he announced and opened his arms, to the crew’s irritation as they wanted everyone ranked and reasons given. I desperately tried to block a huge snigger, imagining what Wing and Weasel would think if they saw this.
We returned to the table, and for lack of a better idea, I nicked his idea verbatim, putting Tony and James’ pics on the table and pushed my love against the wall with slightly more force than he did to me, slyly thinking what I’d really like to do next, then I stepped back. “Not perfect," I pronounced sourly, eliciting gasps from the crew as his eyebrows raised, waiting for the punchline, “The wall colour makes you look rather pale,” I finished, opening my arms and fluttering my eyebrows at him and the crew started packing up.
We got dressed into the Cat jumpers, again pinning our Formals, pairing them with jeans which we thought looked quite good and we wondered whether anyone would get their somewhat discrete message.
In the studio, we were greeted by the Experts, then Sid called us up first and we walked down to the sofa. “Nice jumpers,” Tony catcalled.
As we turned, Lindsay heckled “So cute you two.” Andy pursed his lips, flashed the bird, then opened his arms with a shit-eating grin, causing everyone including Saskia and Joelle to snigger, though Sid had a constipated sneer on his mug. I just wanted to kiss Andy for another shoot-down. We sat down with a hand on the other’s back like we tended to do when filming and I playfully dinged him, plus a quick circle.
“How are you, how was the trip?” Joelle asked.
I got a gentle back rub to signal my leading, “We’re good. Trip was busy: I learned a lot and skied the best and hardest I’ve ever done,” I replied rather tiredly, and she looked on concernedly. There were a few gasps from the rest of the couples at my demotivated tone.
“We’re happy. Company was rather good,” Andy low-keyed and briefly touched his head on my shoulder. As usual, if we were happy, we didn’t tend to show it much .. apart from privately.
“You don’t seem very happy?” Saskia asked as Sid just glowered and sneered.
“Before I met Andy there were topics I had absolutely no knowledge of nor interest in. I’ve learned a lot on quite a few topics since then and I’ve got a really good teacher,” I smiled wanly, gently ding-ding-dinging his back, which he returned rather too effectively at 8/10, and I flinched. “Last week I dined on a rich and wide intellectual table. Now I need time to digest it..”
“You need a long swim, fast run, or the vacuuming” Andy suggested to curious looks from Saskia, and a knowing one from Lindsay and Tony.
“I need to stop thinking to let things settle in. We find those things disengage our brains,” I replied knowing that there were several much better ways to distract! It was quite funny to see Sid still constipatedly stumped as his female colleagues mined our emotions but there were no big rocks for him to find and throw.
“Have you had sex?” Saskia asked.
I got several dings and uttered muffled a mmmh as the very pleasurable 12.5/10 ding hit home. She looked very concerned at this and I dinged him back. He flinched visibly and I realised I’d accidentally spiked him, so I rubbed him briefly as an apology which he returned.
“My back again. It’s OK,” I apologised, and she looked in wanting an answer. “If your guy gave you an amazing dress and a broach,” omitting that the Formal was a joint gift, “What would you do: make him a cup of tea?” I deadpanned and shrugged. I could see the two ladies running scenarios, Sid was completely stumped, though several of the brides looked on knowingly. My love gave me a flat-fingered rub this time, which still pleasantly buzzed me as it triggered my memory of what I had done then.
“What next?” Sid asked painfully, trying unsuccessfully to sneer.
“We checked out and signed off the house sits over there this week,” Andy replied. We currently lived alone, but since Seattle had arisen, we had decided to and subsequently found flatmates that arrive before we went away to keep the houses up and help with the mortgages.
“Anything you missed?” Sid tried desperately to score a hit.
I smiled wistfully, “The crossword: we didn’t do any. Our longest gap,” I shrugged, thinking of usually me on his lap with his arms around me in various positions as we played with the newspaper app on the tablet and its associated activities. Sid looked intensely trying to process why I would miss such a mundane thing. Intellectual lovemaking as we had joked about it since early in our honeymoon.
They showed an edit of Family Day, minus the bit where both families knocked back the coffees and bailed at the stroke of 20. We weren’t surprised at that as that would have made TLS look really bad. Slid leaned forward so much his bum was nearly off the seat “What happened?,” he XXXL sneered.
“You guys know more about that than we do: we only got the precis and had a hell of a time turning them around,” Andy replied, shrugging.
“How do you feel about Sarah?” Saskia asked Andy.
“Very grateful to be matched with her,” he replied as we mutually but pleasantly gently dinged this time.
“What about love?” Sid under-arm bowled
“Love takes many forms: Sid, we love your wit,” Andy shrugged and looked at him to sniggers and smirks as I traced a ring on his back. “There is a lot to love about Sarah: In many, widely different and varyingly deep ways,” he said, briefly head touching me and 4/10 dinging me. >10s were very nice, but not too good for being on TV, I thought, and I thought he’d nailed our feelings.
“Second that, but about him. He’s not bad in the kitchen too, which is always good,” I called back with a head touch on him, thinking that we tended to be quite bad there at breakfast. We knew that a few people, especially Wing and Weasel really knew how we really felt, as they could read us very well or had been the rare people that had witnessed pure romantic moments such as his debarkation from the A350. We didn’t actively hide or try to be discrete. It's just the way we are.
We were released from the Hot Sofa, then it was Sally and James. They got a good roasting as, despite their PDAs, they seemed to be having a few problems. We didn’t gloat as we hoped everyone had the best.
Eventually, it wrapped up and we were bored and stiff as, apart from our slumbering flight, this was the longest we’d sat still in weeks. After some nibbles, we boarded the bus back to The Suites.
We’d arranged with Lindsay and Tony to have a post-filming dinner, and we grabbed the food from our fridge and put the Rat T-shirts in a bag, then headed to their apartment. The crew were already filming, which we didn’t have a problem with, and they greeted us, again not hugging, though warmer than last time. They remarked that we’d held up well against The Experts and we just shrugged as we didn’t fear them. Lindsay looked closer at the jumper graphic, and they smiled. Andy responded “They were a gift from one of the teams: bit of an in-joke,” and flicked his head back toward the camera crew. I playfully slapped his knee, though they didn’t get the jibe, and we knew that the Cat had stuck it to the mice – just neither with a baseball bat nor around the head!
Dinner was served and they asked about our time away. Things quickly turned to WashUp and Tony was very interested, so I talked to him about my learnings, which the Crew decided wasn’t worth filming and packed up. Lindsay was less interested, so she paired up with Andy mostly on the cities, drifting back in when the topic turned in a different angle. Our chat had been very useful for me as it meant that I was able to explain what I’d learned to someone who seemed willing to learn.
Our phones dinged: it was Terri sending a rough cut of the video, so I paired my phone with the TV and played it. For a rough, it was stunning: Grouse, The Chalet, WashUp, evening events, Dog and the Icon, me in Ataxa, though just only our faces, and they asked who did it. I just shrugged and Tony asked if it was the girl's again which I nodded, and they were shocked at her skill.
Lindsay said that the aircraft looked hot, but I seemed very off in the pictures. Andy came behind me and held me tightly with his arms around my stomach. I said, “It was the twin of the one that he was filmed in. Being on her was very interesting, but I was confronted with the memories of that day, and I was glad to have him with me. Feeling him on my back and remembering our hug back on the apron with Weasel soothed the remnant unpleasant memories. ‘Apart, united, together,’” I mused in conclusion, paraphrasing her comforting words. They shot me questioning looks.
“She told me that as she was the pilot then. Three people, three actions, one purpose,” I explained to knowing looks as they understood exactly what we had gone through.
Finally, they asked about the disastrous Family Day. We pulled out the T-Shirts to show them and they laughed. We showed them a picture of everyone before we entered The Manor House restaurant where we were all in high spirits. We simply said that everyone was having an off day at the filming, and we were all happy to be together. Andy rubbed my back as we remembered that was only the beginning of a very fun afternoon, including our special guest!
The next morning, we were glad to leave The Suites with its tiny kitchen-cum-lounge and return to his. There was a home-made chocolate cake that his mum had dropped off which we ate for morning tea, He dropped me off at the train station for a teary goodbye and our return to normality. We realised that The Experiment was designed to put couples under excessive pressure to see if they’d make or break. For a lot of couples, it blew apart their existing fissures and for sadly too few, it solidified them. Our separations had been hard, but they had solidified our existing strong bond.
Being back at work was a pleasant change and seeing my boss was always good as she’s closer in age to Weasel than Wing and acts like a mother to us. She once said, “If my department was a newsagent, I’d be picking up a paper, skimming the headlines, occasionally skimming an article, and seldom reading a whole one.” She wasn’t happy that I was going to part-time for the foreseeable future, but this was tempered by her joy that I’d found someone worthy of me, “Half of you is better than none of you,” she’d told me. In our catch-up, I started by streaming Terri’s video which I used as a base for discussion, and she was shocked that that it was a girl’s making, then observed that we had played and worked hard. Then I gave her the headlines about what I’d learned. She decided immediately that I needed to write this up and present at the next Leadership Team meeting, but that I’d need help. “Is Hot Guy [her nickname for Andy] free?” she asked with a smile.
U free? I texted my love. When we were at work, we’d mostly text as we considered it rude for people’s phones to ping all the time in the office.
Teams in 2?, he replied, and I knew he was in his office. Sadly, his boss was pissed that he’d gone on TLS as he’d been with the company less than a year after leaving Nest. He was even less happy knowing that Andy would be part-timing with Nest, not that my love cared much as this guy was a micro-managing, kisser-upper who Andy and his colleagues knew was technically less skilled than they were. Worse, the idiot didn’t understand their advice, and this was causing problems in the team. We knew that their HR team aren’t capable of fixing it by moving the prat on or out.
We sat at her video call screen and Andy appeared, though not alone. Wing was there and I introduced them. He said that Wing had “dropped by from Nest” and I smirked wondering what her real reason was as her dropping on someone was like the first time she’d dropped in on Bex. She smiled a mother-to-daughter smile back, and I wondered whether his boss was her current target, not that I had much sympathy for the twerp. We discussed Adrienne’s thoughts, and he agreed to meet her when he was staying at my place in a few days. I knew that he would regard the in-person as a First [Business] Meeting, and for him, the only suitable attire for that was a suit: The Suit that he looked so hot in at the altar. After the call, I explained who Wing was, including the dresses, airports, and what she meant to us: a true friend, protector, and honest sounding board.
Being apart was both hard and good for us: hard that we missed each other as we had done since Cycle 0, but good as it solidified our feelings, and our reconnections got better each time. However, our plans had blown up the Crew’s plans for our final vows ceremony. Instead, they had simply decided to keep our Dinner Party announcement in, and the associated Toast was effectively our vows, but we weren’t that bothered as we had enough to think about with Seattle. I’d wheedled out some cash from them in lieu of this and also our away filmings. We were planning on diverting a portion to Terri in the form of a birthday-cum-thanks gift.
A few days later at my place, we’d had our usual brief weekday breakfast of porridge and toast in our usual position, getting a taste of the full works as we referred to it, and then we got dressed. In the mirror, saw him in his suit, but this time in a dark grey shirt with and tie and I started to cry softly. He saw this and softly wrapped his arms around my waist from behind, holding me gently but firmly like in the dark post-wedding. I felt his soothing chest on my back and his mood darken in concern, and I released myself, rotating to face him. I looked into his eyes and placed my hands where he’d told me to at the altar. I was surprised at my reaction to seeing him in his suit for the first time post-wedding and the memories flooded back. “The suit,” I whispered, wrapping my arms around his neck and kissing him gently but deeply which he returned.
He broke off the kiss and whispered, “Love you so much.”
“So much to love,” I replied with a final French. This was our typical call and response. We loved each other immensely. Were we in love? My head had asked my heart but didn’t get a definitive positive from it. Our heads served our hearts, and both felt the same way about him. I definitely wanted to spend the rest of my life with him, and he’d said the same to me. Automatically, he reached behind and pinned on my Formal and I kissed him deeply again, feeling the love that it meant for me: it was made from their great, though differing, love for me, magnified by their giving time which they didn’t have to get it made. Andy was “in my heart,” like he had said when he took off his ring and placed it in his pocket, the Formal was above my heart, though the effect was the same.
Our meeting started formally as he introduced himself, then beamed a presentation from his phone to her screen. He trotted through a corporate’y bit on Nest’s work in high-end manufacturing and management consulting, then introduced the Falcons and their sensors, which now made much more sense to me, which I briefly explained for her. Finally, how Rapid had formed off several consulting projects and what it did, including its continuity, planning, and Washup methodologies which scored several hits on her. He noted “that the core Rapid team are mostly Nest’ers, but some others, like Dog, weren’t,” then echoing Wing at Washup, “The team is very stable and experienced, and we’ve got several new and very promising colleagues.” I playfully kicked his ankle in acknowledgement which she got too. He ran through his background and why he had left Nest concluding in a sad tone, “The work is very good, but it was too hard on relationships.” She nudged me, and I briefly kissed his cheek to reset his mood, then she asked more questions. She decided to contact Angie, who she was in contact with already, to sort out his fees and would re-work my Washup holiday leave as some of Washup was definitely related to my work with her. She decided that it was “Time for proper business,” and led us to the lunch room for morning tea where we had an informal chat and she told him that “It was a shame to be losing half of me, but definitely for the right reasons.” The bad news was that we’d be extra busy for the next few weeks with the new project, tempered by the extra money.
The next few days at my place were busy with work for us, exacerbated by the prep for the upcoming presentation, though we knew that being bored witless with inactivity at The Suites would have been destructive to us and our relationship as our personalities disliked mindless inactivity. The Pests did a day filming our reality, though what they got was not what they wanted as we were either silently working, or in Teams meetings, interspersed by quick coffee and lunch breaks together. In our breaks, they tried firing questions, but we were still mentally on our existing workload, so our responses were terse and distracted. Simply being in the same room and eating or drinking together was plenty for us, though an occasional touch as one moved past the other was appreciated. We mostly did the presentation once we’d finished the normal eight hours together around the large monitor and again, technical not personal and they quickly gave up filming it. This was enjoyable for us as our minds were joined, and we were able to lean in and touch or briefly kiss for light relief or just because we hadn’t for a while. Our main touches and talks on these days would be at night or breakfast, but we still managed the crossword most nights or a brief run. Like when we were away, we were silent on TLS WhatsApp and had let our friends know we were hard out with work, and they accepted our lack of messaging.
The presentation was going to be offsite and closer to Andy’s, so after my new flatmate arrived, we headed down to his place. We managed to get Ellie and Bex over one night and they hit it off as we cooked for them, especially as Ellie wanted to know more about Wing, but we gave a more balanced view of her than Bex did. We discovered that Bex was now fully ensnared by Wing, and though Wing had put out a couple of feelers to Ellie, she hadn’t bitten. Yet. His place now felt like a second home for me, but we knew that anywhere together, we felt at home together.
Unfortunately, Girls and Guys Days were on again and we reluctantly agreed to go despite our busyness out of loyalty for The Test. We told the producers that we would need our phones with us, in case colleagues needed us urgently, but it would only be one colleague periodically checking in and we created several pre-sets on our watches to flash off discretely when needed.
Andy:
Working with the lady I love so much was surprisingly easy. From the beginning, we had an innate sense of the other’s feelings, and this had only grown. The pre-WashUp work had been an enjoyable and valuable component in building shared knowledge and definitely improved an already good relationship. That we could engineer brief distractions was simply the lemony icing on a very rich, lovely cake. I was very disinterested in Guys Day as I am, at best, disinterested in sport and I’ve been around male pilots enough to have very selective hearing with a strong OFF switch. I decided that it would be a day to let the mind wander aimlessly which itself was a valid purpose, just not a marathon-length wander. I was keen to see how the guys were getting on, but I hate backstabbing, though the worst comment I could think of about Sarah was that on a bad day, she was OK and that would score at least a 7/10!
Lunches for me are quick and simple: mostly salads or sandwiches as I’m prone to crashes if I eat too much or rich food, and my love quickly found doing likewise improved her energy too. She’d told me that Girls Day food was grazing platters that were heavy on charcuterie and low on taste, so we asked the producers for a vegetarian option as we were on a diet: my diet, we mused.
Our normal clothing was jeans and whichever jumper was first out, plus retired runners and today was no different. I was completely in grey, Sarah in blue, though she had her Formal on as she now did when out.
Guys Day was being held at The Manor House and I smiled when I arrived at it was the same room that we'd had the wonderful afternoon there. They got up and greeted me like the prodigal returnee, "Ghost Bat arrives," he said referring to my attire.
"About the only thing that actually works on time," I slyly remarked to confusion and had to elaborate about Boeing's Australian-made Ghost Bat 'Teaming Aircraft' for the RAAF. The table was leaden with savouries and beers, but it was mid-day, and I didn't want either, so got up and asked the crew for my special and some coffee. The guys asked where I'd been, though Tony was quiet as he knew. I said that we were back at work, but we also had a project for Sarah's boss that were collaborating on, and this was eating into our evenings.
My sustenance arrived in a picking plate, and I took some, mixing in some of the meats into the plain salad, then the producers focused us on the TV, then played their edit of our footage. The guys saw my sour look at the downbeat edit which Tony picked up on. "Why don't you show us the good stuff?", he asked, nudging me.
I went over to the TV and quickly worked out how to pair my phone, but slyly sent my love a suggestion to do likewise if needed. I saw there were now two files in Terri's clean shared folder, and Washup was the one I needed, so played it to his smile. At the end, I was too slow in getting up and de-paring, so the second video started. The first frame was my enlarged Bat Formal wrapping itself around her Cen, and I saw the letters RK at the bottom and knew this was Bex's doing. This was narrated, but the voices weren’t adult: it was a mixture of the kids’ Learn presentation and Terri's Clean Patagonia, and the previous video. It concluded with a graphic of a large and small weasel smiling and blowing love hearts. I owe Terri big time, I thought as the guys laughed, not getting its meaning,
"Who made the video? Kids?" one of the crew asked.
"Surprising what an expert can do," Tony acidly shot back knowingly as my watch flashed Done. Vid2!!!!
The guys had more beer, though Tony hit the crew up for coffee too and started pinching some of my salad likewise mixing in the olives and bits, causing me to request more. Sarah and Ataxa came up and I replied that she was reliving an unpleasant experience for us and that it was good to wash that out.
Sid arrived to our welcomes and said "Guys don't generally talk about emotions and feelings, today we will. Andy, you first: did you miss Sarah while you were away, and did you tell her that?"
I truthfully replied, "As soon as I got on the plane out, I had my breakfast and dinner times added to her diary so we could talk," he sneered at this, considering it unromantic and mechanical, though I didn't care as I knew she really appreciated this and this had started her connection with Wing, "Did I tell her I missed her?: Cycle 0: no, I didn't want her to get more upset and I had to focus my mind on the task. I always told her how grateful I was for our video calls. Cycle 2, I was doing splits, I had more time, and I knew that I'd be seeing her soon, so I did say it a few times," I smiled, but I was thinking of some of our other chats.
"So, you didn't miss her," he sneered.
"Emotions are distractions from safely and effectively doing the work. People can die if we get distracted," I glared at him, repeating what the pilots had reinforced in their tales during oft-lubricated discussions, but thankfully it had never happened to me, and the guys audibly inhaled. "We [Rapid] have processes on communicating with loved ones and when to do safely. Sarah is very intelligent, and she understood," I fixed on him. "I've told you what happened after the link-up: I was angry, alone and I went back to the hangar and cried," omitting that I'd soon called Wing, "Surely you got our reaction when she arrived?" I asked in a rather bad-tempered tone though smiling inwards, knowing that it was likely then that Wing had finalled her revenge on them. And you didn't see what happened when I got back I smirked: Wing gave us the chocolate and you the raw redcurrant.
Sid turned onto the other guys, eliciting varying results of disclosure and elaboration. I politely listened and drank plenty of water then and after, causing trips to the loo where I could check in with my colleague. Some of the guys wondered why I was drinking so much, and I replied, "Need to keep hydrated," but the lubrication was really upstairs: letting it wander about many things, but especially one.
Sarah
I arrived at the venue last and was greeted by the brides, most of who were already on the available wine, though Lindsay poured me an apple juice, knowing I'm not a big drinker. They asked what I'd been up to as we were absent on WhatsApp and got a nudge from my friend. I explained that work was busy, and I'd got an extra project resulting from WashUp which I was working with Andy on, and that we had little free time and even our runs had suffered. What I did want was my mid-morning coffee, sadly not served by my love, and I asked the crew for one. When the plunger arrived, I poured the hot, steaming liquid and smelled the taste, but I drifted. Sally saw my face and mistook it for sadness. "Why so sad?" she asked.
"I'm not sad, just thinking," I replied distractedly and got egged on by them as they still thought I had sad thoughts, so I decided to open our door slightly. "When we got to The Chalet, he decided to disabuse me of hitting the pod machine, so he made one for me. It was a very weedy brew." They shuddered, thinking I was finally insulting him. "But there is something about even crappy coffee if served right, and this one was served very right," I concluded, smiling as I remembered how we'd served each other shortly after and of his earlier serving me Nespresso first thing which was even better. Lindsay, getting the underlying thoughts, kicked my ankle. I nudged her, hoping that she was being and getting served well.
They turned on the wall TV and showed the edit of our footage. Immediately I realised they'd grabbed the most tedious bits, ignoring anything remotely interesting. I clenched my fist and looked angry, which the girls picked up on but couldn't work out why, except for Linsday who was elbowing me gently, then my watch buzzed use the vids xx and I realised he had come to me just as I was in need. "You really only got that crap out of it?" I roughly turned on the director which shocked most of the brides, though this wasn't the first time they'd seen me let fly.
I strode to the TV and got my phone hooked up, realising I now had two videos, and decided to let them both run: the producers could stop me if they wanted, but I knew it wouldn't make them look good in front of the group. Fold or hold: their turn to fold, bugger, I thought as WashUp played. Seeing our entwined Formals made me warm inside, realising Bex had hit home, then the rework of Patagonia, Learn and WashUp again surprised me with Terri's skills on the rough and I noticed the group was looking intently on. "A girl with a laptop can do better than you lot with the best kit in the land," I directed at the crew as the graphic of the Weasels stayed up, and the brides hugged me, which this time, I accepted. We owe that little minx big time; I knew that repaying the debt was something Andy and I would have to discuss with Weasel to figure out.
Joelle suddenly appeared and pronounced, "Time to talk Sex." I thought this was quite apt as the crew had just been fucked over. She got out a bunch of Vivid Fun sex toys, which were obviously a plug, but I visibly yawned at seeing them which surprised her. To recover, I requested a coffee for stimulation, and grabbed some more salad, then mixed in some meat. Lindsay took my lead on stomach filling and filled her plate. I'm not a prude, but if I want to blow off, I motivate myself to hit the gym or do a 5K TT, plus my recently discovered new ways meant I had no need for a toy: ding, ding, ding: I reminded myself and got a pleasant 3/10 reminder: a gentle taste, rather than the full course works which he could accidentally give me on the sofa!
She talked through the toys and Sally, who had knocked back several glasses but had a rather uncontaminated plate, wanted a go, as did Joanne. Lindsay was marginally more interested than me, and Joelle picked up on my uninterest, asking me if I wasn't interested in sex or toys. My love's wedding day comment about him not talking publicly about it was a gentle pour of respect and one willingly reciprocated throughout. "For me, intimacy is cumulative: intellectual, emotional, physical, and finally sexual. Each has many forms, but ultimately entwined." Joelle listened deeply to me, and I wondered whether she was thinking about her current state, though Sally was blanking again. Besides, I never expected to get one on a freezing cold runway and I knew nobody conclusively knew that I'd had a few on the sofa in front of her, albeit very different and incredibly enjoyable from our naked ones. I knew that the first three intimacies could give me the fourth despite being fully clothed and this was something she either didn't understand or want to talk about. She was offering sugar rushes, but my body ran on a different, more complex, richer, and much more sustaining fuel. I knew that I was not alone in this, but women were being sold on sugar. Thankfully, he was also bored, and I'd followed his lead in hitting the water hard, so I got regular brief watch buzzes. Even this gentle buzz was a stimulation for me: stimulating my thoughts about him and our project and I was thinking about our reunion later. “You’re selling cheap, sweet biscuits. They’re nice, but I’m more of a Chocolate Hobnob girl,” I concluded to a deafening silence, though another ankle kick from Lindsay.
Andy was dropped off first, then I was. They filmed me getting out of the car and him opening the door. He embraced me lightly and said seriously, "Time for work, colleague," as his right hand found my wrist and playfully snapped onto it, like a rat trap around a pest's neck, then he gently spun me around, so I was facing outside and his hands started playfully roughing the bottom of my jumper and back, giving me gentle tingles: I knew what work was up. The crew groaned, stopped filming, and packed up as we headed inside, closed the door, and shed our shoes.
"Missed me?" he asked?, holding me tight and working deeper and harder on my back, now on my skin giving me loving sensations that I knew would build.
"Not really, only about a 9" I kissed him, "Very distracted by texts, they really want us to look boring," I smiled and kissed him back, playing with his jumper and starting to roam up as we gently kissed deeper and slower in our usual enriching way. This was the true, rich, and complex intimacy that Joelle and the sponsors didn't want to plug, but heading more to heavy fruitcake on the snack front. His hands moved round and dropped my top's zip, then he lifted it off, unclasping my bra on the way up. I repeated on his top and then resumed kissing as he guided me to a chair where we could sit, make-out, and slowly build.
We kissed deeper as our hands roamed backs, massaging, touching, stimulating, and relaxing as I slowly closed on him. "This is really nice work," I broke off, then resumed as his hands massaged my front and I felt his chest, and I stood up and we explored further, eliciting soft, gentle waves and audibles. Who needs a toy when I've got my love touching me as the clothes dropped to the and we resumed our now naked make-out, but now with us pleasurably touching our very pleasurables and building anticipation and for the next step.
"With you my love, so amazing," he said, as we fully connected in our usual slow, sensual way moaned and pulsed gently on my slow, gentle climb. On top of me, we deepened our intimacy, then I rolled onto our side so our hands could caress backs as we were completely connected and we worked together slowly, very pleasurably and gently climbing to rich, deep, and gentle but intense finish. Our quickies were fulfilling, but this was absolute fulfilment, something that bird hadn't talked about earlier. We lay there entwined until our stomachs told us that they needed filling now, so we headed to the shower for a soft, gentle wash including a gentle reminder of what had just happened.
The next few days we hard-out for us, with my work being busy, our prep for the nearing Leadership team day, and his boss announcing that a project had to be moved up. Andy smelled a rat, and as he knew the manager who the work was for, went to them to get clarification. He discovered that their manager was being a prick, that the original deadline still held, and the client told the team and boss that nothing had changed, so they ignored the prat. Our intellectual lovemaking, as we referred to it, was as deep as the physical one and just as uniting.
At the presentation, I wore my No.3 dress, as I referred to it, and him, his suit that he always looked so extra hot in, though I think he was hottest in me. We did a brief intro about ourselves professionally and what the WashUp process was, then led the team through slides that we talked through the group with which rapidly deepened their knowledge. Our style is that the Messenger delivers the Message and shouldn't distract from it, unlike some presenters we'd seen for whom, the Message was solely about The Messenger, After, Adrienne thanked us for the work and observed that we were "Very professional on stage, but if you knew the clues, they were there!"
Then we were into Christmas Parties: this time we had three: first one was mine which was fun as everyone got to meet my love and we could be open with our relationship, albeit in our usual discrete manner. His one was mostly very good: it was good to meet his colleagues, but they observed that the boss had gone very quiet after he had several meetings with an oldish lady they didn't know. Wing strikes again, we smiled. The boss actively and rudely ignored us, and he was spending time with his peers and seniors, though the seniors were very keen to see Andy, knowing that it was going to be harder for them in future, and to meet me: the cause of this imminent difficulty.
Nest was the final one. It was very good to see Wing and Bex again and we all hugged this time, though had little new gossip as we OMessaged often. As with WashUp and Down, it was very much designed for mingling, connecting, and fun, with plenty of good food and drink and we cut slightly looser at this party.
