The New Guy

The New Guy

Mike Ledur

All rights reserved.

Part 1

It was a small two-bedroom apartment in a quiet neighborhood. Inside, it was impressively clean and orderly. One of the bedrooms was used as an office, with a set of golf clubs in the corner. One bookcase there was devoted to programming books, and the other to several other subjects - golf, vintage movies, and daily life in historical times. The living room, with white walls like the rest, wasn't spacious, but it was comfortable, with a sofa, a chair, an end table, and TV. The eat-in kitchen had everything you could want for making basic meals. There were no grease spots on the counter or crumbs on the floor.

That's just the way Howard liked it. After a long marriage, Howard's wife had left him for a younger model. He thought their wonderful, energetic times in bed kept her happy, but apparently she longed for more. He missed those times a lot, but what he didn't miss was the mess she left everywhere. He didn't miss the wet towels on the bathroom floor, the dishes left dirty overnight unless he washed them, and the snack wrappers on the living room floor. When they sold the house and he moved into the apartment, he was glad to have a fresh start.

Except for not having a companion, his life seemed pretty good, at least until Friday, December 28, 2018, when, at age 59, he was laid off from the company where he'd worked for nearly twenty years. It was a shock, and he knew it would be extremely hard to find a new job. But he was determined to give it a try. In the meantime, he took online courses in new programming languages, new coding techniques, and new data structures. He also started golfing again, going for long walks, and lifting dumbbells. It wasn't easy, but in three months, he lost about fifteen pounds. He looked fitter than he had in years, and he felt better for it.

He was organized in his job search, and spent at least an hour a day on it and trying to stay in touch with a few of his former coworkers. But he also spent some time on the sofa, mainly in the afternoon, watching vintage movies. Always curious and well-organized, he bought movie books and soon related the books to the afternoon movies, with favorite stars. He lusted after Ida Lupino, Gloria Grahame, Audrey Totter, and the others, and he imagined visits from Gene Tierney. Occasionally he pictured himself as Glenn Ford or James Cagney.

Howard enjoyed making the simple dishes he liked - roast chicken with potatoes, steamed vegetables, and brown rice cooked in chicken broth. But twice a week he walked down to the restaurant a couple of blocks away, sitting at the bar for a moment, occasionally seeing someone he knew, and ordering dishes that were beyond what he could make at home. Anyway, it was nice to get out of the apartment.

On April 7, 2019 his job search efforts seemed to pay off: he got an email inviting him to an interview at Gilbert Manufacturing, a company few people had heard of, since, as he learned, they manufactured products to be sold by marketing companies.

Howard's application caused a stir in the IT department at Gilbert, where the assistant director, Gail, had suggested to the director, Louise, that his qualifications could be a good match to replace a senior programmer who'd recently retired. They'd tried hiring recent graduates, but none of them could pass the programming tests. They needed an experienced programmer, but also fresh blood. They decided to invite him for an interview, but as usual they had no plan on what to ask him. They invited Hank, another programmer, to attend the interview.

After they asked Howard a few questions about his programming experience, Hank asked Howard some sports questions. That didn't go well, since Howard didn't follow spectator sports. When Howard mentioned that he played golf, though, Hank and the women asked him about his favorite local courses, and Howard felt that the interview was saved. They also asked him a number of questions that Howard knew were illegal - whether he was married, what neighborhood he lived in, and what he did in the evenings - but Howard played along. To Howard's delight, Gail happened to mention vintage movies, and he soon learned that people in the department were big fans.

"Have any favorite actors from the forties or fifties?" Gail asked, and Howard was able to list his favorite actresses from the time, not hiding his admiration for them.

"Do you see yourself more as a James Cagney person, a Humphrey Bogart, or Glenn Ford?" Louise asked.

"So I sure admire James Cagney. What a powerhouse personality, and I like Bogart in most of his roles, but if I have to choose, I'd be Glenn Ford. Calm, self-respect, and the ability to get tough." That answer was the beginning of a heated discussion.

"You live in Worthington [a city just north of Columbus, Ohio], right?" Gail asked. "What do you think of the neighborhood?"

"So, for me it's perfect. I live so close to town that I can walk to most places."

"What do you think of the restaurant scene there?" Hank asked.

"So, my favorite is Dave's Bar and Grill," which is just a couple blocks from my home. "I usually have dinner there on Mondays and Wednesdays and eat at Tommy's Chinese on Fridays. It's just my routine." He thought he might have provided too much detail with that, but no detail seemed too small for Louise, Gail, and Hank.

At that point Howard noticed something. Like every employee at his previous company, he'd begun every answer with "so." But none of the Gilbert people did. He had so much else on his mind, but he needed to force himself not to do that. He also noticed that their voices were rather loud, so he too began speaking a little louder than usual.

"Would you mind coming back for some written tests?" Louise asked, apparently to end the interview.

"I'd love to. Any time is good." He was glad to have avoided the "so."

"Great. By the way, in case you've noticed the noise, it's the manufacturing building next door. All the office staff have now moved into this building, so you'll probably never need to go over there."

A few days later, Howard got an email inviting him to go to HR for some testing. He was impressed that the tests, which involved both coding techniques and programming architecture concepts, were up to date. That was a good sign, and he felt that his online courses prepared him well for that kind of challenge.

Another good sign was that a week later, Gilbert HR set up a medical exam for him, a complete physical and not just a drug test. Howard felt pretty healthy, so he didn't have anything to fear about that. It was all encouraging, he thought, and he felt that he was finally getting close to being hired.

"Do you know anything about Gilbert Toys?" he asked one of his former coworkers over the phone that evening. Joe was a software tester and had enjoyed working with Howard.

"I've heard of them," Joe said. "But I don't think I know of anybody who works in IT there. What's your impression of them?"

"In the interviews they seem easily distracted, and they don't seem to have much sense of urgency."

"Not a good sign," Joe said, "but at our age, does it matter?"

"Maybe not so much. Really, if I can work for another five and a half years, I'll be set to retire. But I can't really afford to give up right now."

"Then no matter how bad it is, you only have to put up with it for that time. It's great to have an end game. And I've heard that some small manufacturing companies make do with obsolete systems. As long as things basically work, they're good."

"I'll probably have to take it, really. I'm getting so few responses to my resume. And I'm wondering whether one of my references is blackballing me."

"Really, like one of the managers here?"

"Yes. Maybe all it would take would be for one of them to mention that I missed a couple of deadlines. They always mentioned my slowness in performance reviews."

"But that slowness was only in the initial coding," Joe said. "It paid off later in the project, since your work was so thorough and water-tight. All those years, I never came up with a user action in your modules that wasn't foreseen and didn't produce a good error message."

"Thanks. I appreciate your saying that."

The next day, Margie Miller, the software testing manager at Gilbert, came across Louise in the hallway and asked her, "What do you think of your applicant? Is he good looking?"

"He's not Glenn Ford, but he looks fine and he's fit. He did great on the written tests and passed his physical, including the crucial part."

Gail overheard some of the conversation from her office and joined in. "I got the impression he's really on our wavelength, if you know what I mean. But how can we know for sure whether he's good for it? He could turn out to be a dud."

At that point, Gail and Louise looked at Margie, who they thought might be able to play a role. They remembered that after her divorce, she'd bought herself some nice evening outfits and enjoyed wearing them to meet new men in the evenings. "Margie," Louise said, "Are you up to this?"

The three went into Margie's office and did some internet research on Howard Maynard. They found some of his high school classmates and came up with a plan.

"OK," Margie said, "here's a classmate named Miller. I'll tell him I'm Tony Miller's sister and pretend I knew him. Of course if he's suspicious and starts asking questions, the whole thing will collapse."

"Perfect," Gail said. "Do you still fit in your gowns?"

"Yes, of course. I weigh a few pounds less, but the gowns still fit, I'm sure."

That evening Margie looked in her closet and found the expensive red outfit - jacket and skirt - that had been her most successful. Like the other outfits from that time period, it was easily removable. She got out the ironing board, did a very careful job on it, chose her favorite big necklace, and put it in the ultrasonic jewelry cleaner. She made an appointment with her hairdresser for Saturday morning to have a perm and a color renewal. On Monday morning, she more makeup than usual and put on the big necklace and earrings she planned to wear that evening. Gail and Louise told her she looked perfect, and some other women in IT complimented her on the new look, but the men in IT, predictably, didn't seem to notice.

That evening, Howard was in the bar at Dave's enjoying a cocktail when, to his great surprise, a very enticing woman came up to him. "Howie," the woman said with a big smile, "You probably don't remember me. I'm Tony Miller's sister Margie. I always wondered what happened to you. I only met you a few times, but I liked you and always wanted Tony to invite you around."

"I'm sorry," Howard said, "but I don't remember your face. But I see the resemblance to Tony. How's he doing?"

Margie had done her research and was able to say, "He moved down to Cincinnati. That's where his wife is from. He's doing great."

That was news to Howard, but it didn't really matter, since it wasn't every day that he talked to such an attractive and engaging woman. He was flattered to be the subject of her attention, and she focused on him except for a brief phone call she took.

"My party is standing me up," Margie said after the phone call. "Were you meeting anybody, or would you like to have dinner together?"

"That would be great," Howard said, and they were shown to a table. She did most of the talking during the meal, but she also asked him about himself.

"I'll tell you the truth," he said. "I was doing great till I got laid off."

"When was that?"

"Three months ago."

"And are you hoping to get back in the game?"

"Sure. I can't retire yet."

"Do you have friends you see occasionally these days?" she asked.

"Not really, but I keep in touch with a few of the people I used to work with, mainly through email."

"I think you'll find something. Really, you have the energy of a much younger man. In fact," she said while reaching across the table and touching his hand, "you're just the kind of guy I'd love to meet."

Howard and Margie didn't pay much attention to their dinner after that. They had a long conversation about generic topics, and at a critical moment, Margie asked Howard where he lived.

"In an apartment building just a couple blocks away."

"Do you keep it clean, living by yourself?"

"Sure do." And then, after looking carefully but discreetly at Margie's dyed-blond hair, big, shiny necklace, the skin just below her neck, and how her sequined red jacket fit her upper body, he did what he'd never done. He asked her, "Would you like to see it for yourself so you don't have to believe me?"

She hesitated for a moment and said, "I guess I could stop by for a few minutes."

They held hands as they walked along. Howard felt an excitement he hadn't felt in a long time, but he also wondered whether he had any drinks to offer her. He drank very little and didn't keep much liquor on hand.

When he opened the door, Margie gave him a friendly hug, and after he turned on the lights, she glanced around and said, "This is amazingly neat and clean. You must be really well organized. I love that!"

He found an old bottle of port in the back of the pantry and asked her if she'd like some. "I better taste it first," he said, and after a sip, he knew it was past its prime but still drinkable.

They took their port glasses to the sofa, but soon put them on the end table and held hands, exchanged a few kisses, which became more intense, and, you know, the usual routine. At one point he carefully removed her big necklace and put it on the end table. While Margie stopped in the bathroom, Howard looked in a closet and quickly found his contraceptives and lubrication, which had thickened a little but still flowed. Howard was inspired by Margie's relatively lovely skin and figure, and he came to life and found that Margie came to life as well. One fly in the ointment: when Howard finished up, he found that the condom he'd used, which had been sitting in the closet for three years, was completely torn. His heart sank, and he had to admit it to Margie, who, to his surprise, didn't seem bothered at all.

"I wouldn't worry about that," she said. I just had a physical a couple months ago and haven't been out on the town since then, so I'm safe. How about you?"

"I just had a physical recently, too."

"So we're good." Howard thought he'd narrowly avoided disaster.

An hour or so later, as they lay there in bliss, there was no more need for generic conversations. Pillow talk was about themselves and the erotic power they'd just inspired in each other. An hour of sweetness later, Margie seemed to want more. "Let's forget about the contraceptive this time." Howard was at first worried whether he'd be able to start up again, but he and Margie were both delighted to find that he could.

Another hour or so later, exhausted after a second round, they lay there holding on to each other, until finally Margie indicated she needed her beauty sleep. They exchanged email addresses. As they walked back toward the restaurant so Margie could find her car, they held hands tightly, and in a dark spot on the sidewalk, they exchange some final kisses and agreed to meet again. When Howard returned to his apartment, he looked at the email address and was amused to see "margiepargie@outlook. com."

The next morning at the Gilbert IT department, Margie invited Gail and Louise into her office. They closed the door, and Gail and Louise were all ears.

"Howard is amazing," she told them. "We went on for a good three hours or so. He has the energy of a much younger man. He's definitely, definitely, good for it." Even though Gail and Louise pressed her for more details, she said, "You'll just have to experience this for yourself." But they continued pressing her for more information, and she ended up providing it.

Louise immediately went to HR and discussed Howard's offer letter. She went back an hour later, carefully reviewed the letter, and asked the HR lady to send it.

"The director needs to review it first, but he'll probably do that by the end of the day."

Meanwhile, when Howard woke up the next morning, he was surprised that he'd been able to do a double session, and he worried that if he had another date with Margie, she'd be disappointed that he couldn't. He contacted his doctor, who called in a prescription for a low dose of the medication that would help him out. That afternoon, he walked to the pharmacy to pick it up and also picked up some condoms and a fresh bottle of lubrication.

Part 2

At around 4:00 that afternoon, Howard received an email from Gilbert HR, which began, "Dear Mr. Sparks, we thank you for your interest in Gilbert Manufacturing. We are pleased to extend an offer for the position of senior programmer in the Department of Information Technology, reporting to Louise Bowen, the Director of IT. Please come to the reception desk at 8:30 on Monday morning, May 6, 2019 and ask for Donna Trumbo in HR for your orientation..." The salary was less than Howard had earned at his previous job, but he thought it was satisfactory.

After Howard replied with an acceptance, he felt on top of the world. He had nearly a week of freedom, but he mostly was relieved to be employed again. He was emboldened to send an email to Margie Pargie to invite her to dinner on Thursday or Friday. Was she really just a one-nighter who'd given him a bogus email address? He didn't have to wonder about that very long, because her reply was prompt and indicated she'd be happy to see him on Friday. He was thrilled and looked forward to getting together with her again, sharing his good news, and trying out the new medication.

On Friday around 5:30, just after Howard had finished showering, squeegeeing the shower walls, and getting dressed, and having a final check of the apartment, he read the directions for the new medication and learned that it had a long duration, so there was no need to take it exactly the right time beforehand. He plucked up his courage, took the pill, and left for Tommy's Chinese. He knew he didn't want to jeopardize their relationship by asking her personal questions like where she lived or where she worked, so he thought of some other, general topics of conversation.

Margie was so excited that she hadn't slept well, and she spent considerable time applying her makeup to hide the signs of fatigue. She hoped Howard didn't ask her where she worked, and she shuddered to think how awkward that would be. She knew that safe topics were golf and activities in Worthington, so she'd stick to those. She also hoped that, as he did the first time, he'd leave plenty of warm-up time, but she hoped that the time in the restaurant would count toward that. She left work early so she could go home and change into another flashy outfit, this time with a gold lamé blouse - one with a deeper neckline.

Howard stood up from his table when he spotted his sensual-dream-come-true and gave her a quick kiss before they sat down.

"I'm so sorry to be late," Margie said, even though it was only about three minutes. "I had to park in the next block."

"That's perfectly fine. I'm just so glad to see you. Parking on High Street gets a little tight sometimes."

They continued saying banal things about Worthington, each considering it a safe subject. Then they talked about their menu choice, about details of the food when it arrived, and so on. It had been about 45 minutes since Howard had taken his pill, and, sitting across from Margie in her seductive outfit, he was already feeling the effects. This could lead to embarrassment, but he decided that the table saved him from that at the moment.

Finally, as they finished their meal, Howard announced, "Big news this week. I received an offer letter."

"What a relief," Margie said. "You must feel like celebrating."

"Being here with you is my celebration. And sharing the news with you is a real treat." Neither one felt secure enough to suggest that the real celebration would happen in bed. Instead, they just talked about Worthington until they were about to leave, and Howard finally invited her to his apartment. No pretext, just an invitation. They walked hand in hand till he opened the door. Then they embraced, and he poured the same port as before into the little glasses. After about fifteen minutes of a kissing trance, he discovered how easily removable the gold lamé blouse and the frilly black bra underneath were. Soon they were in bed trying out the new lubrication and not bothering with the contraceptives.

After a long and passionate first session, they caught their breath and lay there in bliss saying sweet nothings. But after a half-hour or so rest, Howard said, "I just can't get enough of you" and began a second session. "I can't believe it, Howie," Margie said. "You're just amazing."

What Howard found amazing was that after a long second session and pillow talk, he had a feeling that he had it in him to go for a third round. But, not wanting to wear Margie out, he decided not to act on that feeling. Margie was already lost in passion and affection, smothering him in kisses. Finally, around 11:30, she was getting very tired, and Howard walked her to her car. They exchanged some intense farewell kisses, and she set off.

On Saturday Howard sent MargiePargie a very sweet email, mentioning the "magic" that he felt was between them and saying that he hoped to see her again the next week. Margie wrote back thanking him for his lovely note and expressing confidence that she could see him again soon. Howard spent the next day and a half in a cloud of happiness, elated that he'd found a new job and a woman who apparently loved being with him.

On Monday morning, as Donna Trumbo was going through some points in the employee manual and the medical insurance brochure, Louise, Gail, and Margie made last-minute plans. Louise typed up a schedule for the new guy's first day, which included the moment when Howard was brought to Margie's office to meet her.

At 9:30 Donna Trumbo walked Howard to Louise's office. She was very cordial and seemed sincere in explaining what an important role he'd play in the department, and wishing him great success. She handed him a copy of his schedule for the day, which included briefings from several members of the staff. He noticed a lunch meeting at noon and a 5:30 meeting with Louise in her office.

Louise took him to Gail's office, which was next to hers. He and Gail went together to the coffee machine, where she explained that coffee in the IT department was free and that sometimes people from Accounting appeared there to avoid paying for the coffee in their department. They returned to Gail's office, where at first she seemed uneasy. Her face seemed a little flush, as if she were embarrassed about something, but she calmed down and explained her role as software architect and assistant IT director and as such, Howard's manager. As she discussed the status of the current projects, she slipped off her jacket, exposing an almost-transparent blouse. Howard was astounded at such abundance and struggled to hide his interest. He didn't know whether he was passing or failing the test, but he definitely enjoyed it and he hoped that he'd be able to get together with Gail sometime soon.

During the explanation of the projects, Gail explained that the lead programmer, Hank, was "stuck" on a couple of them and that those would be assigned to Howard. Near the end of that hour, Howard took a bathroom break and then returned, as requested, to Gail's office, where he found Louise as well as Gail, who'd put her jacket back on. Both women looked somewhat anxious, and Howard wondered whether they'd had too much coffee.

"Time to meet more of the staff," Louise said, "starting with the QA testing manager." The three of them left the office together. The nameplate of the office they took Howard to had been removed, but what was far more surprising was that when the three of them entered the office, Margie, yes, Howard's Margie, stood up and, with a lovely smile, shook Howard's hand and said, "Welcome aboard. I'm so happy to welcome you here." At that point Louise and Gail left and closed the office door. Margie invited Howard to sit down.

"I really am delighted to see you here, Howie, and I want you to know that nothing was fake. I meant every bit of it, every bit, and I think you're an incredible person and an incredible man."

Thoughts of insincerity and deception entered Howard's mind, but he couldn't really entertain those thoughts with the lovely Margie in front of him. "Whatever role you had in getting me hired," he said, "I'm very grateful for. You know how happy I am to have this position, and I really hope to make you proud of your role in recommending me. I shouldn't say this at work, but I really would like to see you again, maybe even this week. I think we have something really special between us, and I hope that our new situation doesn't interfere with that." He surprised himself with his own eloquence.

"I hope so, too, Howie, and I agree that we have something special. But as much as I look forward to seeing you again, that might have to wait another week or two. But you won't be alone. You'll get other invitations, and I think the gracious thing would be for you to accept them. I don't think you'll regret it."

Those words seemed very strange to Howard, but since they came from the mouth of dear, sweet Margie, he accepted them. "I'm the new guy here, so I agree, I'll do the gracious thing and accept the invitations. But I also look forward to our next rendezvous."

"Wonderful. I think you're going to fit in perfectly with the group."

Margie then took Howard back to Louise's office, and Louise took him to his next appointment, which was with Hank, who would review the status of his projects, including the ones that Howard was to take over.

"I'm so behind the eight ball," Hank began. "I'm just so overwhelmed with projects that I can't seem to focus on any of them. I'm thrilled that you're here to take on some of them."

"Don't you have a project manager to help you prioritize them?" Howard asked.

"Sure. That's Larry. In fact I think you should meet Larry. I'll take you around to his office in a few minutes. But basically the problem is that on each project, I'm stuck. Maybe you could spare some time to look at them with me and make some suggestions. I'd really appreciate that."

"I'll see if I can spare a few minutes here and there to do that for you."

Hank brought out two copies of a printed spreadsheet of about ten projects. They went through them together, and for each one, Howard could see the due date (all were late) and the name of the module that Hank was stuck on. Howard told him how grateful he was for the background on each of the projects he was to take over. He also explained how the source code was organized, and as Howard looked at the check-in dates of the files, he concluded that none of them had been updated in over six months. Unless the programmers were keeping all the work files on their own PCs, rather than checking them in, he had to conclude that the projects were at a standstill.

"Let me see your schedule for today," Hank said. He looked at it and said, "We can pick this up tomorrow. For now I'll take you around to meet Larry." That seemed like a good idea to Howard, since he hoped Larry would be able to shed some light on the project delays.

Larry's office was a total mess, with memos, letters, spreadsheets, and handwritten notes scattered everywhere. Howard was shocked, but of course it was not his role to complain. He showed Hank's list of projects to Larry, and Larry turned to his 43" monitor with scaling apparently set to 200% and tried to find the master project file. He muttered to himself for a while and finally said, "I'm sorry. It seems to have disappeared. I bet it reappears five minutes after you leave my office."

Howard was shocked and confused, wondering what kind of company he'd signed up for. "Is there a central office of project management, I mean for the whole company?"

"Yes, but they're clueless, if you ask me. They don't know anything about software development. I keep hearing rumors that they want to fold my function in with theirs, but fortunately that hasn't happened yet."

It was time for Howard's next meeting, so he found his way back to Hank's office. As he approached that office, he heard Louise asking, "You did what? You took him to see Larry?"

As Howard stepped into the office, he heard Hank say, "Yes, I thought Larry should meet the new guy."

Louise had a hard time hiding her displeasure, but turned to Howard and said, "Let's take you to Phyllis. She'll get you started on the in-house programs and the development tools."

Phyllis, who immediately seemed pleasant, was very happy, almost awkwardly happy, to meet the new guy. She had on a nice dress with a lace collar, and Howard thought her makeup looked tasteful. She brought a chair around next to hers and asked Howard to sit there so they could go over what she was going to show him on her twin 38" monitors. "Joy, who's the admin, will show you the time clock application and the schedule application, so I'll show you the programming tools and environment." Even though she repeated herself a couple of times, Phyllis was very clear in her explanations, and showed him the Microsoft programming tools and the build environment. "We've currently got an open issue with Microsoft that's preventing some of us from checking in our source files," she said, "so some of the builds are on hold for now." She showed Howard a list of the recent builds, and he noticed that the most recent ones were a month or two old. She gave more explanations, and at one point she reached over to Howard's knee and rested her hand on it. In a very soft voice, almost a whisper, she said, "I'm so glad we'll be working together."

She took her hand away when Louise entered the room, and Louise announced that it was time for the lunch meeting. There seemed to be a lot of excitement in the air as Louise led Howard to the big meeting room, where Howard counted fourteen people. "Grab a sub and sit next to me," Louise told him. When he sat down, Joy, on his other side, introduced herself to him as the admin and said quietly, "This is everybody except Betty and Bill. They're the end-user support people who are preparing your PC."

As people started eating their submarine sandwiches, Louise gave an informal speech. To Howard's surprise, she used a microphone. "Well, we finally have a new guy. He's a very experienced programmer. He passed the tests easily, and we think he'll fit in very nicely with members of our group. His name is Howard Sparks, and we have high hopes that he can bring our projects back on track. Welcome, Howard."

There was applause, including some loud and enthusiastic clapping. But the real excitement came when Joy brought in the cakes, including knives, plastic forks, and small paper plates. Fortunately someone quickly snapped a photo of them before they were attacked, so shortly afterwards Howard received a picture of two cakes with the writing "Welcome New Guy" and "Welcome Howard." But then Howard saw two women carefully carving out the word "Howard," and then disappearing with the pieces. There was some giggling as they walked out of the room with it. That didn't make sense to Howard until he returned to his office to find two pieces assembled to say "Ow" and "Hard."

Really, everything at the lunch meeting was standard corporate IT procedure that Howard had seen many times at other companies. What must have impressed him, though, was that afterwards, a few of the women employees came up to him individually, introduced themselves, and offered help with problems a new guy might face. That was beyond standard procedure.

The lunch party went on for almost two hours, and then Howard spent time with Joy, who explained the time clock and calendar planning applications, and Rosie, Margie's second-in-command and software tester.

While that was happening, Louise was having a panic in her office, complaining to Gail that things were going very badly and she was afraid the new guy would have a terrible impression. "I'm so upset that Hank introduced him to Larry! What would any new guy think after meeting that bubblehead? He must have a terrible impression. I just hope he didn't have any other offers. It would be so disappointing if he bailed, after we all just got physicals and got our hopes up from Margie's report."

"Maybe he'll stay because of Margie," Gail said.

"Maybe, but we can't have him fixated on one person. I'm planning to take him to dinner tonight, but look what a mess I am! I'm so nervous that I'm sweating. And I don't have any deodorant. I'll have just fifteen minutes at home to clean up and get dressed. And let's face it, Margie is a hard act to follow in that domain. I'm so worried I'll be smelly when I invite him."

"I can let you use my perfume. I happen to have some that I just bought out in the car. I was going to use it with him, but that'll give me an excuse to buy another one."

"What is it?"

"It's the BDK Gris Charnel Extrait."

"Oh, that's so expensive. I wouldn't accept it, but this is an emergency."

Gail went out to her car and brought in a small package. "You can give it back to me tomorrow."

"Gail, you're so kind."

At exactly 5:30 Howard appeared in Louise's doorway, and Louise asked him to close the door.

"Tell me about your day," she said.

"My main impression is how helpful some people are. I should be up and running in only a week or two. But I haven't looked at Hank's code yet. I'll have a better idea after that."

"Very good. Please keep me in the loop about what you find."

"Of course," he said.

In her calmest voice possible, Louise began explaining something.

"You see, Howard, we know that some parts of this organization aren't where they should be. Projects are late, and sometimes forgotten, and programmers get stuck. We have high hopes that you'll be able to help us get things back running again."

"Thanks. I think you can count on me for that."

"But there's something else we need you for, and that's the social aspect. I think every department member should do their part in helping other employees and creating a pleasant work environment. You may have noticed an imbalance between men and women here, and if I dare say it, an imbalance between the energy levels of the men and the women. It's just not conducive to a balanced environment."

"Do you think I can help reset that balance?" Howard asked.

"Yes, but not by doing anything in public. It's what you'd do in private that might contribute greatly to alleviate some of the suffering of the women employees."

"You must know that I'm very struck by Margie."

"Yes, and that's wonderful news. But your efforts should be extended to others. Don't you think it would be better to offer your attention to others, so that they don't reach out to you, maybe in inappropriate ways?"

At that point the situation was clear to Howard. What was also clear was that Louise, his new director, was tottering on the edge of reaching out inappropriately. He certainly didn't like to see her in that embarrassing situation, and it would certainly be impolitic to leave his director in that awkwardness on his first day. He decided that he liked Louise physically - she had a few more pounds on her than Margie, mostly in the right places, but he also liked her gentle yet determined approach. He came to the conclusion that she didn't want to use her power in this situation, and he didn't want to wait for her to do so anyway, so he took the bull by the horns and said, "Louise, I think I like you a lot. I know this is inappropriate, but I wonder whether you're free for dinner this evening."

Louise's gasp was almost audible. If Howard heard it, he would've had a hard time interpreting it. But he didn't have to wait long for a clarification. "That would be wonderful, Howard." He thought he noticed some moisture in her eyes and realized it was his role to stay calm and pretend not to notice.

"It will be a great privilege for me," he said.

By now the moisture in Louise's eyes was unmissable, and she looked like a terrible burden had been taken from her as she managed to say, "Thank you so much, Howard."

"I'm really looking forward to it."

"Then why don't we meet at Dave's Bar and Grill in Worthington at 6:30?"

"That sounds perfect." He reached out a hand to shake hers, and as their palms touched, he used his other hand to clasp hers for about two seconds.

Howard went back to his new office to see whether Betty and Bill had finished setting up his PC. They were still working at it but had no prognosis. Howard wrote down his hours for the day on a piece of paper to remind him to record them when he had access to the time clock application. He also looked around the office and thought he should do something about the tall piles of papers everywhere.

"What should I do with all these piles of papers," he asked Bill.

"I'd ask Joy about that."

He went around to Joy's cubicle and asked her what I could do about them.

"Oh, they were Tim's. He retired."

"Can I throw them out?"

"Oh, I wouldn't do that. I'll help you take them to the file room." They went back to the office and picked up as many piles as they could. He followed her down a hall and to a medium-size storage room. It was dusty and packed with disorganized piles of papers. "Just put them on top of those," she said. After two more trips, they finally got them all in random piles in the file room. Then Joy said, "You should see how dark it gets in this file room when we turn off the light." She turned off the light and closed the door. Howard could sense that she was standing right next to him, and he wondered why. She found his hand and held it. To be gracious, he put his arm around her waist, just for a moment. "You really are nice," she said, and a moment later she opened the door and he went back to his office. Every surface was covered with a thick layer of dust, so he brought back a pile of wet paper towels from the restroom and carefully scrubbed everything down. He found a clean rag, dampened it, and used it to clean the 43" monitor.

On his drive home, he was sorry not to be seeing Margie and wondered when they could get together again. But he also realized that Louise's generous figure appealed to him a lot and that having a personal relationship with his director might help ensure his continued employment at Gilbert for the next five and a half years. If the women could avoid jealous conflict, the situation sounded ideal.

When he got home, he realized he had just enough time to shower, squeegee the shower walls, pick out a different tie, and take his yellow pill. He decided that he needed to keep a couple of pills with him at the office, since what would've happened if Louise had suggested driving directly to the restaurant?

He asked for a table for two, preferably in a quiet spot, and he decided not to order a drink until Louise arrived. He thought about the strange situation he found himself in and whether it could really be what it seemed. He also thought about Gail, Joy, and Phyllis, and wondered what their charm and pleasant expressions could portend. But he also thought about the risks for the evening at hand. He needed to focus intently on Louise's every reaction, anticipate her every need, and of course never mention Margie.

When Louise appeared, he was struck by her transformation: she wore a bulky necklace, big earrings, an apparently easily removable silver lamé blouse, a black skirt, and a pair of sheer black stockings, which might be slow but interesting to take off. Their conversation began with the expected awkwardness between a new employee and his director, but soon, as they finished their cocktails, they seemed to move beyond that.

Howard and Louise decided not to overeat, so they split a salad, a fish sandwich, and an order of sweet potato fries. As they walked from the restaurant to Howard's apartment, they held hands, and occasionally Howard brought her hand to his lips and kissed it. So it seemed only natural, as soon as they entered the apartment, that they should exchange a serious kiss. He invited her to have a look around the apartment, and she paid special attention to the programming books. They each took a bathroom break. When he came out, he realized that she was wearing a strong scent. He didn't mind that particular scent, but he wondered how long it would linger and whether the next woman would notice it. But since Louise was his director, he decided there was nothing to be done about it at this point.

Sitting on the sofa, Louise accepted a glass of port, but as Howard poured it, he realized he needed to buy a new bottle. At least he'd put the lubrication in an easily accessible but not obvious spot on the bedside table. They exchanged a few kisses, and then Louise leaned her head back. Howard turned toward her and ran his fingers through her hair, which was a little stiff from the hairspray but still enjoyable. A few kisses later, he carefully removed her bulky necklace and earrings and then started stroking her legs. He guessed that she was wearing thigh-high stockings and gently reached under her skirt to the top of them and began gently sliding them down. Louise expressed her trust by leaning back, sighing, and letting him continue.

When he finished removing the stockings, he rubbed them against his face and, since Louise had reacted so nicely when he'd reached for the top of her stockings, he returned to her thighs. He managed to leave one hand there while holding her head to kiss her, and a few minutes of that caused considerable sighing. Louise then pointed to her top blouse button - there were only four - and Howard slowly undid them. He had to satisfy his curiosity about how her upper body contour had created the wonderful shape of her clothed upper body. They continued to make progress in this direction until, with Louise repeating, "Oh Howard, keep doing that," he led her into the bedroom, where they slowly undressed each other. The viscosity of the new lubrication seemed ideal, and they carried on for almost an hour before Louise, with tears in her eyes, smothered Howard's face with wet tears.

After some pillow talk, Howard felt strongly that he could resume if Louise would like to. Her response during the second round - moaning and screaming - confused him at first, but at the end, which had been very powerful for both of them, she again cried and told him he was amazing. Her marvelous figure, along with the yellow pill, made him optimistic that he could continue ever further, but he decided not to raise expectations that he might not be able to fulfill with other women.

When they came to their senses, Louise leaned over him, kissing him occasionally, and said, "Howard, here's my summary of the situation. I think you're marvelously prepared for the social aspects of your position, but I foresee some issues: (1) the competition among the women will be fierce and could lead to unpleasant scenes, (2) we don't want to wear you out, (3) we want to be fair, and (4) we don't want to leave you with the administrative burden of having to do your own scheduling. Here's what I propose: (1) Gail will draft a requirements and design document for a simple reservation-system application for the sign-up and scheduling, (2) you'll code it, and (3) Margie will test it. I'll ask Gail to administer it."

"That sounds fine except it doesn't seem fair to ask Gail to do that until she's participated in the program."

"Good point," Louise said. "I'll assign her to you for Wednesday evening, and I'll talk to her about the proposal on Thursday."

"Good plan," he said.

"And Howard, I have something else to tell you. I was feeling quite anxious about this evening, but it has turned out far better than I could have imagined. You're such a good hire that it will take an effort to let you engage with the other women. But I know it's the only way."

Howard walked her to High Street and embraced her as she got into her car.

On Tuesday morning, Howard's PC was still not working, so he opened the case and found the video card still wrapped in clear plastic. (He wondered why it needed a video card anyway.) He went out to his car and found a screwdriver in the toolkit he carried in his trunk, went back to his office, removed the card, removed its plastic wrapping, and put it back into the PC. When he turned it on, it started up and displayed the Windows logo. With Phyllis's help, he set up Microsoft Visual Studio and was ready to go.

(When he walked out to his car, Joy noticed him, panicked, and rushed into Louise's office with the news that Howard was leaving. The two of them laughed with relief when they saw him return to the building.)

Later that morning, when Joy interrupted Louise, she was working hard on the requirements and design document, and shortly after Howard was set up with an email account, he found the document, read it, and suggested the addition of a block-out feature, so that he or Louise could block out certain evenings. Louise accepted that, and Howard got busy.

He found enough code segments online that he could piece together a simple reservation system with an administrator, authorized users, invitations, scheduling, and a few reports. (No wonder the recent graduates can't pass the tests, he thought, since for their homework they found solutions for basic programming tasks online.) He demoed a prototype for Louise, Margie, and Rosie, who'd be doing the testing. Rosie found a customer test database, loaded some tables into Howard's application, and said she'd put it through a series of tests. Rosie admitted, "This is our first new test project in a good while, so we're very grateful to you. And I hope that I'll be among the first users in the live system." They talked for a while about the QA department at his previous job, and Rosie was happy to learn that he'd had cordial relations with the testers, welcoming their input. He left so she could get to work.

Ten minutes later, Rosie appeared in Howard's office admitting that she'd forgotten what he'd said in the demo about how the program was supposed to work. Howard returned to her office and talked her through the demo again. While Rosie was running the tests, Joy helped him get set up in the time clock system and the schedule system. After he updated it with his hours from Monday, Joy stayed around for a little while to chat. She was attractive and very pleasant and seemed to have things she wanted to say but didn't think she should.

Gail, the software architect, assistant IT director, and Howard's manager, invited Howard to lunch. It was normal for a manager to do this for a new employee. She drove him to a fairly quiet restaurant and asked for a booth. She was a little nervous at first, but she calmed down. They talked about the projects, the other employees and their responsibilities, and whether he was happy with things so far. She still shared Louise's concern from Monday that he'd have another offer and leave after learning about how things were done in the IT department.

"I'm curious to open up Hank's projects and see where he's stuck," he said, "but overall it looks like I can be productive in this environment. The social aspect is going extremely well from my point of view." He added that last sentence to answer the question she didn't want to ask: whether he was happy with his evening with Louise.

Howard really liked Gail, but he didn't think it would be appropriate to compliment his manager on her face, figure, or outfit. Near the end of the meal, as they talked about a variety of subjects, he thought that the best thing he could do at this stage was to relieve some of the awkwardness inherent in the situation. He reached across the table and held her hand for a second or two as he said, "I'm really looking forward to tomorrow evening." That surprised her a little, but she was glad, and flattered, and it gave her the chance to say, "Thank you. I am, too." The look he saw in her face at that moment was memorable and made him wish it was already 6:00 pm on Wednesday.

When he got back to his office, he found a note from Rosie about some possible issues she'd found in testing his little program. When he went to her office, she said, "I thought with such a small project, we could just talk about these things rather than creating a new project in the defect reporting system."

"Sounds fine to me," he said. "Let's see what you've got." She showed him a couple of typos in the UI and another, more serious problem that prevented a dialog box from appearing. "I think I know what's causing that. Give me about fifteen minutes."

He returned to his office, quickly fixed the typos, and managed to find the cause of the bigger problem. After he corrected that, he kicked off the build and went back to Rosie's office. By the time he got there, the build was available, and she downloaded it and ran it. He sat next to her as she checked it. "The typos are fixed," she said. "Now let's try the dialog."

"Oh, Howard, you're so fast!" she said. "I've never seen a defect fixed so quickly. I'm going to love working with you." She quickly put her arm around him to congratulate him, and that suggested to him that she really did want to be one of the first users of the live system. He left so she could continue running the tests.

Howard spent the rest of his afternoon looking at Hank's code problems. He took a pencil and a piece of paper to Hank's office and asked Hank to show him the trouble spots. Howard took notes about the error messages and the failure points in each module that had problems. He didn't want to try to figure it out on the spot, so he took his notes back to his office and had a good look at them. Nothing seemed obviously wrong, but he looked up the error messages on the internet and thought he might have found a solution. He didn't want to check out the files himself, so he went back to Hank's office with his proposed solution. That didn't work, but three tries later, he found a solution that did, and only some smaller problems remained. The build ran, and Hank cheered. Howard generously said, "Since we worked on this together, you can check the files in and notify QA that the modules are ready to test." Hank was thrilled to have a solution and happy that Howard was allowing him to save face. Clearly, Howard had helped him solve problems that had kept that project at a standstill for weeks, but Howard thought it would be rude to state that.

Howard's main thought as he drove home was that he felt lucky that he could do the work and get along with people and almost certainly keep his job. The slowness he'd often been criticized for didn't seem to be a problem here. And he still wondered whether his incredible encounters with Margie and Louise had been real or merely a dream. No slacker, he decided to do some research and visited some serious-looking sites on how to please women in bed. But he wondered how much of that advice was generic, and he decided that the best piece of it was to pay close attention to everything the woman says and does, every expression, and even her breath. He also concluded that if he was indeed going to sleep with several women, he should avoid a formula and instead try to make every encounter unique.

Before he left his apartment on Wednesday morning, he had a final check to see that everything was clean and tidy. He'd washed the sheets on Tuesday and put the second set on the bed, and he wanted to make sure there were no traces of Louise in the apartment.

At work, he attended a meeting with Louise, Gail, Margie, and Rosie so that he and Rosie could demo his new little reservation program with test data. "Normally we have a signoff at this point," Gail said, "but since this is an off-the-books project, we can just verbally accept it." Louise told Gail, "Download the installation files and populate the user database. Include all the women in the department except Betty."

Gail said to Margie, "It's good we got this finished now, because it seem like some of Hank's projects are nearly ready for testing."

"After all this time," Margie said.

The rest of the day Howard spent with Hank, as Hank turned some of his projects over to Howard, explaining the background and the current status. At that point, Howard realized he'd be busy for weeks, if not months.

At 5:30, as Gail had requested, Howard went to her office. She started by telling him how happy she was with his work on the reservation system. "Of course it's a small project, but it's impressive how little time it took. You're a real speed demon coder. And QA was ready and waiting, so that went fast, too."

Howard, always modest, said, "It turned out to be pretty simple, but I'm glad it didn't take long, because I now have the projects Hank turned over to me. I might need to go to the users to get some clarifications on them."

"Talk to them individually if you need to, or we can set up meetings with them. I'll be happy to attend."

"That would be great," he said.

"By the way," Gail said, "for this evening I've drafted a little schedule to propose to you to clarify my expectations. Bring your chair around to this side of the desk."

She showed him a new document in Microsoft Project, where she had some steps and times listed:

6:00 pm Dave's Bar and Grill for light dinner

7:00 pm Walk to H's apartment and look around

7:15 pm Friendly chat on sofa

7:30 pm Romantic

7:45 pm In bed

6:30 am Morning session

7:00 am Breakfast

7:45 am Leave for work

"Of course this is not set in stone," Gail clarified. "We can improvise. This is just a proposal for your consideration."

Howard was very surprised, but Gail was his manager, after all. He recalled some of the micromanagers he'd worked for and how much he'd appreciated having their expectations spelled out. And that schedule seemed perfectly doable. "At long as there's some flexibility, I think I can work with that."

She picked up his hand, kissed it, and put it between her thighs. "Oh, Howard," she said. "I think you'll like this restaurant," he said. He was glad he'd remembered to take some pills to work, so he took one before he left.

When he got back to his apartment, he parked in a visitor spot so Gail could park in his HS-marked place. She got out of her car with a small suitcase, which he graciously carried to his apartment. Then they walked together to Dave's. The server showed them to the same table where Howard had dined with Louise, and Gail reminded him that she had planned on a light dinner. As they sipped their cocktails, they ended up ordering a salad and a pulled pork sandwich with extra plates. Gail asked about events in Worthington, including the Worthington market, but soon the conversation turned to work, specifically Gail's frustrations with the slow pace of some of the workers in the IT department. "Louise and I were so distressed that Hank took you around to see Larry. I mean, you'd meet him eventually, but we didn't want that to happen on your first day."

"He just seemed a little disorganized," Howard said, trying to smooth things over.

"But he's not the only one. And the result - I hate to admit this - is that our productivity is horrible. That's why your role is so critical to the future of the department." She reached across the table and held his hand.

Howard didn't want to say that he'd already reached that conclusion, but he was distracted by Gail's upper-body profile, which he'd had an incredible preview of when she removed her jacket in her office, by her perfectly applied makeup and lipstick, by her bauble collar necklace, and her beautiful, traditional perm. Between all that and the pill he'd taken, he was once again glad to be avoiding embarrassment by sitting at a table.

"Gail," he said, "with your guidance and my work, I hope we can get the wheels turning again. I promise you I'll do my best."

"And I'm hoping you didn't wear yourself out on Monday and still are able to do your best for me this evening."

"I have a very strong feeling that I will. If nothing else, the moment you shared with me in your office when you slipped off your jacket has stayed in my mind as inspiration."

"I was hoping that would make an impression on you. Thank you for confirming that. Do you think that little gestures and little touches in the office would make you look forward to your evening events?"

Howard thought of Phyllis touching his knee and Joy holding his hand in the file room, and he said, "Definitely. I like that, but of course it needs to be discreet."

"Of course. Tomorrow I'll have some other members of the team stop by to talk to you so you can make sure you want them to be included as users in your reservation program. I'll need to talk to them before adding them, too. For now, I've added Rosie on Friday as a reward for her work testing it."

"I'll look forward to that," he said.

"By the way, my initial idea was to be very selective about how we chose for you. I wanted it to be a reward for good performance, but Louise convinced me that would lead to trouble, so we're opening it up. We hope that at just the right moment, you can say a few words to each of them about the importance of working hard and doing their best for the department."

"Sure. That sounds like a good idea."

"Plus, your productivity will set a good example for them."

The server brought the check, and as usual Howard picked it up. He included a tip equivalent to two full meals, because he wanted to make sure he got good service at Dave's.

"I think we should reimburse you for that," Gail said. "You don't need to fill out an expense report. We'll just generate one for every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday."

"I really appreciate that," he said.

They walked to his apartment slowly, holding hands, with Gail sometimes putting her arm around his waist. As soon as they were in the apartment and had taken off their shoes, they held each other tight. "Go ahead and look around," Howard said, inviting her to do the next item on the schedule. Gail looked carefully around the kitchen, saying, "Oh, it's so clean. Do you actually cook here?"

"Sure, but just simple things. Nothing fancy."

Then she went into the office room and looked carefully at his books. "Most of these programming books are really up to date," she said.

"That's how I spent a lot of my time when I was looking for a job. And I also took some online courses."

Then she looked at the other books and happened to pull out The Time Traveller's Guide to Elizabethan England. She looked through it quickly and said, "This is so curious. A look at daily life all those years ago."

"That's just what I like to read. When I took history, I was bored with kings and wars. I always wondered how people actually lived in those days and thought that would be much more interesting. This book is an example of exactly what I was looking for. Would you like to borrow it?"

"That would be great," she said. She looked at the bedroom and even peeked under the bed.

"This is incredibly clean!" she said. "You must have been shocked when you saw the state of things in our office. Just before you started, I sent out a memo asking people to clean up, but they didn't do much. There was still a mess in the coffee station, and as usual somebody left their reading glasses there. It's so frustrating. Please be your tidy self and set a good example."

"Of course," he replied.

"Let me put this book in my case and stop in the bathroom," she said. "You can go first if you like."

When Howard came out of the bathroom, he found Gail putting the book in her little case, which she then took into the bathroom. She'd turned down the lights. He poured a couple glasses of port and put them on the end table in the living room. Ten minutes or so later, Gail came out, wearing a bright-pink lingerie set, mostly translucent except for the bra and panties. "That's awesome! You're beautiful," Howard exclaimed as he invited her to sit on the sofa. She'd removed her makeup and lipstick, but with the lights dimmed, he figured it didn't matter very much. He'd soon be too busy to notice.

He wanted to start slow, even though it would be challenging. They had a few sips of the port and then began serious kissing and touching. He remembered that she had allotted fifteen minutes to "romantic," so he determined to do his best to implement that. He occasionally glanced at the clock on the TV and was surprised and delighted when, at 14 minutes, she led him into the bedroom.

Two hours later, with all expectations exceeded, Howard and Gail shared a very sweet session of pillow talk. Practically in tears, she told him how grateful she was that he was on board. She also made him promise that if he was unhappy about anything at work or if he had another offer,               he'd talk to her about it.

Gail had brought her toothbrush and pajamas, but after so much affection and so many compliments from Howard, she decided that pajamas were unnecessary, and the two feel asleep in each others' arms, waking up with the alarm at 6:30 for a morning session. Then they showered and dressed, and Howard prepared pancakes with sausage and coffee for breakfast. They decided that he would wait a few minutes after she left before setting off so that they didn't arrive at the office together.

Howard spent most of Thursday and Friday working out the problems with the projects from Hank and had to report to Gail that there seemed to be some inconsistencies with the original designs. For the first module, Gail called a meeting with Howard, Hank, and Joan in Accounting to work out a revised design. They negotiated a solution to the problem, so Howard had a clear idea of the required rewrite. Maybe it was just Gail's imagination, she told Howard, but she was concerned about some of the looks Joan was giving him.

Rather than let that get out of hand, she had a private meeting with Howard to clarify that his relationships with women outside the department would be professional only, "for health and business reasons," she said. "From a health standpoint, you're perfectly safe with any of the women in IT, but of course we have no idea about Accounting."

"My assumption was always that I should limit my evenings to IT employees," Howard was quick to say. "There's so much beauty and so much need in IT that I have no reason to look elsewhere. If you see me interacting with Joan in a friendly way, that's all it is. Accountants have never appealed to me much, and I have no reason why she'd assume that I'm available." Howard was sincere, and he realized that he'd have his hands full with his schedule in IT.

The meeting had helped clear things up for Howard, so he could focus on rewriting the code to match what Joan had said Accounting needed. But he was puzzled about a question that was so basic it would have been embarrassing to ask in the meeting: what were the outputs of the program? Did it all end up in reports, or was the processed data sent to another program?

On Friday Rosie invited him to lunch. She was very sweet, and he told her, in practically a whisper, that he was looking forward to their evening together. "I am, too," she said, "but thanks for reminding me. I might have put it on the wrong day in my calendar." Afterwards, she remembered that she had some user interface issues she wanted to show him, and as he sat next to her, she took his hand and said, "I'm so excited to be with you this evening."

At 5:30 Howard took his pill and stopped by Rosie's office to remind her, and she assured him that she remembered and would put the address for Tommy's Chinese in her car's navigation system. They arrived at almost the same time, and they were shown to a booth. She was a little shorter than Margie, Louise, and Gail, but Howard liked her sweet expression and her curvy, slightly chubby figure. She reminded him of a fellow student he'd had his eyes on in college, and he had to stop himself from calling her Rosanne.

Rosie talked about her job and how much she enjoyed dealing with new projects. "Sometimes if I have a testing problem I can't solve during the day, I wake up the next morning with a solution."

"That's what happens to me occasionally, too, but I have to be really troubled by it," Howard said. He decided that what Rosie lacked in sparkling conversation, she more than compensated for in adoring looks. "I've looked forward to being with a man like you for ages," she told him.

At Howard's apartment, she was a little awkward but melted with the first kiss. During their time on the sofa, after passionate kissing led to some touching, she began sighing loudly, losing herself in complete surrender. As soon as her blouse and slacks were off, Howard was ecstatic at the feeling of her soft, plump skin under his fingers.

Two hours later, which consisted of Howard's usual routines plus some manual intervention for Rosie, they lay there feeling that they'd been dropped down to earth from somewhere in the ether. They exchanged an endless number of kisses and reluctantly got dressed, and Howard walked her out to her car.

Despite the threatening clouds, Howard played a game of golf on Saturday morning and ran into a former colleague from his old company. Buddy was cheerful and outgoing, and sometimes talked so loudly and freely that people thought he'd been drinking.

"Howie! How's it going?" Buddy shouted to him in the clubhouse.

"Great. I found another job. Just started this past week."

"Wonderful news. How's your boss? Is he reasonable? Is he giving you crap for being slow?"

"It's a woman, and I think we'll get along fine. She's happy with me so far."

"Perfect. I always figure the number one thing at work is to get along with your boss. Gotta go."

Howard spent the rest of the weekend reading, watching some films noirs, and thinking about his situation. He was having a hard time coming to terms with his recent change of fortune, going from an unemployed lonely guy to a hard-working programmer admired by his colleagues and worshiped by the women. But he worried about the department and wondered how it could keep going with such low productivity. He had remote access to his work PC, and when he looked at his evening schedule, he saw that Joy was scheduled for Monday. He looked forward to his time with her. He also looked over the project he was working on and thought over the challenges. He was almost ready to talk to Accounting to get their input.

On Monday, Joy, the charming, attractive admin, found a number of excuses to appear in his office. She seemed very excited. But she was very sweet, and when Howard mentioned that he was busy, she offered to have lunch brought in, so they could eat in his office. She was cheerful, talkative, and seemed to know everything that was going on in the department. When they were almost finished with their meal, Joy took some pill bottles out of her purse and took about three pills. "It's best to take them with a meal," she said. And then she added, "I wonder when I should take them for this evening. If we get to the restaurant at 6:00, when do you think we'll get to your apartment?"

"Probably around 7:30."

"And when do you think we'll be getting busy?"

"Oh, that depends. If we decide to talk for a long time, it could be 8:00 or 8:30. But it all depends on how long you like to talk beforehand and what else goes on."

"Especially with somebody new, I think I'd like to talk and so on for about an hour. OK, so maybe I'll take my pills just when we're about to leave the restaurant."

This conversation would have put a damper on Howard's anticipation, but he was determined that the evening would still be wonderful for the two of them. Of course he knew that adaptability was the key to relationships, especially in the unusual situation he found himself in.

After lunch, he got back to work, and after a couple of visits to Hank for clarifications, felt that he was getting somewhere in understanding the code for a couple of the modules.

At 5:30, when he was just about to finish up for the day, Joy came back to his office and said, "I just wanted to make sure you hadn't forgotten about this evening." Howard didn't know whether she was serious, so he said, "Certainly not, young lady!" and smiled at her. They agreed that he would leave a few minutes earlier than her so they wouldn't be seen leaving together and so he could park in his apartment lot and she could meet him at the restaurant.

When he arrived at Dave's, he found Joy waiting for him outside. She seemed thrilled to see him and even more thrilled when he gave her a quick kiss. The server showed them to Howard's usual table, and they sat down and soon ordered their cocktails. After they ordered, Joy asked for a second round of drinks, to be brought before the food was served. Howard almost never had two drinks, but he decided to go along with Joy. When the new drinks arrived, a few minutes later, Joy started talking about people in the department. "The hardest working by far are Louise and Gail," she said, "and then Margie. Most of the others have some problem they're dealing with. Betty and Bill, for example, both have vision problems. They're married, by the way, and always work together. Sometimes I think Hank has something bothering him, but I don't know what it is. He gets crabby sometimes, but mostly he's fine. Did you know that, a long time ago, Phyllis put the moves on Hank? She wanted him to go out with her, and I don't know how many times she asked him, but he never did. Maybe he's still bothered by that. And more recently, I think she tried to put the moves on Neil."

"Who's Neil?" Howard asked.

"He's the network administrator guy who keeps his office door closed all the time. He's not very nice. You probably remember him from that lunch on your first day."

"OK, I think I know you mean."

"Also a long time ago, after Margie got divorced, she was dating some guy for a while, but he turned out to be a gambler, I mean, a serious gambler, so she decided to break it off."

"Very interesting," Howard said. "How are you doing, Joy? Are you happy to be working at Gilbert?"

"Oh, yes, I love it. It's such a nice company. Well I don't know about manufacturing - that's the noisy building next door - because I never go there anymore. But I'm happy to be in the office. How did you like your old company?"

"It was fine. Not wonderful, but fine. I liked the people I worked with and played golf with a couple of them occasionally."

"Oh, I heard you played golf. Margie loves it too, and I've asked her to teach me, but she hasn't done that yet. If you don't mind talking about it, Howard, were you married?"

"Yes, I was. It's not my favorite subject, but I was married for a long time. What do you think of these sweet-potato fries?"

"They used to be so hard to find, but now lots of restaurants have them. I still like them better than potatoes, but they're not as exciting as they used to be. Do you cook?"

"Sure, but nothing fancy. Mostly just steamed vegetables, rice, and occasionally a roast chicken."

"What do you put in with the roast chicken?"

"Just some white wine and salt. That's all."

They talked more about food and enjoyed the meal, but they didn't order dessert. When they were about to leave, Howard thought he should remind Joy about the pills.

"Oh, right. I almost forgot." She took out a couple of pills and washed them down with some water.

When they got to the apartment, Joy was still chatty and was especially curious about the apartment. "Can I glance at your books?" she asked, so Howard turned on the lights in the office. She peeked into the bedroom, but when Howard offered her some port, she accepted it and sat down next to him on the sofa. They started holding hands and occasionally kissing, and after a while Joy started relaxing. As she slowed down, she was more interested in kissing. After a while, Howard led her into the bedroom, where Joy was completely open to the experience.

Two hours later, as they caught their breath from the second round, Joy seemed focused on kissing Howard and telling him how wonderful he was. Howard thought she was too relaxed to drive, so he brought her car around to the visitor's spot in the apartment lot. She got up early the next morning, so she could go home and get dressed in time for work.

When Joy stopped by Howard's office the next morning, she whispered to him, "I just want you to know what a wonderful time I had. I'm sorry if I was too gabby."

"I understand," he said, but he wasn't sure he did.

Later that morning, Howard stopped by Gail's office to ask who he should talk to in Accounting. He explained his questions, and Gail reluctantly said that Joan was the one who knew about that. "Don't worry," he told Gail. He set up a meeting with Joan for later that morning.

He didn't need to introduce himself to Joan, since they'd been introduced at a meeting the week before. This time Joan was very sweet, obviously happy to speak to Howard in person. Joan was so charming that Howard felt brave enough to ask his embarrassing question: what were the outputs of the program he was working on? "Does this all just end in reports?" he asked.

"Of course there are reports," Joan answered. "But the next step in the data flow is one of the SAP accounting modules."

"SAP?" Howard had no idea that Gilbert was using SAP, the vast modular package of programs for accounting and manufacturing functions.

"Sure. I guess IT doesn't like to advertise that. Most of the modules IT has created are really just front ends and input modules for SAP."

Howard was shocked that nobody in IT had told him that. Maybe they were a little ashamed that IT had such a small role to play in the accounting functions. Joan explained some more things to him, and Howard said, "I'll need to go back and review the code with that in mind."

"No problem," Joan said. "Just stop by when you have questions."

After looking through the code for about half an hour, Howard went back to Joan's office to ask a couple of important questions. Joan explained some more things, and Howard felt that he then had enough information that he could have the module ready for testing in a day or two.

"By the way," Joan said as he was about to leave, "I wonder if there are some other things nobody's told you. Would you be free for lunch?"

That made Howard very curious, and he readily agreed.

They left in Joan's car, and she chose a quiet, upscale restaurant. After they ordered, Joan asked Howard some basic things like what company he'd worked for and what kind of software he'd worked on. After he explained all that, she said, "Well, I think you're perfect for the job. IT has been looking for someone with that kind of experience for a long time."

"And I think it's a great opportunity for me."

"The company should be good for a little while, but sales are declining. I don't know if you knew that."

"I didn't know that. Why?"

"You've probably heard that with so many people not getting their children vaccinated, the survival rate for children has fallen off. Diseases like mumps are prevalent again. So there's just less market for toys."

"I've read that fewer children are surviving to age five, but I hadn't thought about it in relation to the market."

"Have they told you much about the history of the department? They've been through a lot."

"Really?"

"They've had a lot of divorces, spouses dying, and so on. By the way, they were the last department to leave the manufacturing building. We were over there at the beginning, and the noise was really bad." Howard assumed that was why they talked louder than most people.

"And they've all been there forever, but that's true of Accounting as well. I don't know if you've heard this, but the company was founded by two women, who tended to hire women, and one of the unwritten policies is that they almost never fire anybody. The result is that there's a lot of deadwood. You'll see what I mean as time goes by. But maybe that's good news for you."

"Maybe so, but I don't think it's really a good policy. It won't stop me from working hard and doing my best."

"They'll certainly appreciate that. By the way, I see you're not wearing a wedding ring. So you're not married?"

"No. I got divorced a few years ago."

"That's too bad, I mean, assuming you were happy."

"I was, but she found a younger model. I know. It usually happens the other way."

"Well, I hope you don't mind me saying this, but I'm a member of Worthington Methodist, and we have an informal get-together for single people the first Tuesday of the month. I'd love to take you as my guest, or you could just show up. I'll send you the information."

"I'm sorry, but I don't think that would be right for me. But I appreciate your thinking of me. I do."

"Anyway, I'd like to see more of you, so it would be great if we could have lunch occasionally."

"Yes, I could probably do that when I'm not busy. I really do appreciate your help on my project, and thanks for the information."

Howard thought he should tell Gail about having lunch with Joan, so when he went back he checked her office, and she said this would be a good time to talk. He didn't tell her what Joan had said about the company, but he mentioned Joan's invitation to the social at her church. "I told Joan I wasn't interested. If she's a church lady, I don't think you need to be afraid. I'm not going to get involved with a Methodist."

"I don't think that stands to reason," Gail said. "That could be just part of her come-on. Be very cautious with her, and please continue to report your conversations with her. And by the way, there are rumors that some Accounting employees have had STDs."

"Thanks for letting me know."

"By the way, since you're seeing Phyllis tomorrow evening, I should warn you that she's eccentric. Just don't assume anything about her."

"OK. Thanks."

The next day Howard typed up a mini design document that he could show Gail for the work he was planning to do based on the input from Joan. At around 11:30 Phyllis stopped in his office and asked if he'd like to go to lunch. He agreed, and they set off for a restaurant. Phyllis wore a fancier dress than usual. Like some of her other dresses, it had a row of buttons from the lace collar all the way down.

"There's something I should talk to you about for tonight," she told Howard.

"But isn't it tomorrow evening that we're getting together?" he asked.

"Oh. What is today?"

"Tuesday."

"Oh, my goodness, you're right. But we can still talk about it. For Wednesday evening, you could do me a really nice favor, if you would."

"Sure. What's that?"

"One of my favorite Bogart movies is on the movie channel at 7:30, High Sierra. Have you seen it?"

"Yes, but not recently. Would you like to watch it then?"

"Yes, but, if you don't mind, I'd like to multitask with you. We watch the movie but at the same time we get started between the two of us. It's an hour and forty minutes long, which is the perfect time for me."

"So maybe during the commercials, we can focus on each other," Howard said, just to clarify what Phyllis was suggesting.

"Right. And you probably know that seventeen minutes of every hour is devoted to commercials, so I can be entirely yours for then."

Howard thought the request was unusual, but with such a charming woman as Phyllis, he was eager to please. Besides, he liked the fact that she'd made an interesting suggestion.

"If you have a special request for me, I'd also consider that," Phyllis said.

"Let me think it over."

By Wednesday evening at the restaurant, he'd thought of something to request, but he wondered whether Phyllis would agree to it. He was glad, near the end of the meal, when she remembered to ask him whether he had a special request.

"Now, Phyllis, this is just a suggestion. And there's no problem at all if you don't like it. I wondered if before the movie comes on, you could stop in the bedroom and change a little - just remove what you're wearing under the dress. Would you like that idea?"

She seemed a little shy about it, but finally said, "I think I like that. After all, you're doing what I want, so I can do what you want."

They left the restaurant at 7:15, and as they walked to Howard's apartment, holding hands, Phyllis thought more about the evening and liked Howard's request more and more. Howard, on the other hand, thought that an hour and forty minutes of preliminaries might be a challenge for him. But he liked Ida Lupino, the co-star, and especially liked the idea of getting started with Phyllis.

He brought some snacks and drinks into the living room and had it all set up at 7:30, just when Phyllis came back from the bathroom looking almost exactly the same as when she went in. They sat close and paid close attention till the first commercial break, when their evening officially began. Things proceeded nicely for the next hour or so. By the time Bogie was shot dead, leaving Ida Lupino in grief, Howard had stroked every accessible inch of Phyllis's lovely skin, and she was ready to have the buttons undone. As she quietly wept over the plight of the characters, he led her into the bedroom, where the dress was removed (he was glad to see the lace collar on a chair) and the evening continued as one would expect except that with so much preparation, Phyllis and Howard were already in the mood and ready to go.

As they lay together in bliss an hour later, and Phyllis told Howard how wonderful he was, she also talked about the movie.

"Oh, I wish Bogart had married Velma (the high-school age woman from the desperately poor family). He could've settled down with her and had a normal, decent life. And he should've known he was dealing with amateur crooks. Maybe he did."

"I've wondered about that," Howard added, "but I also had my eyes on Ida Lupino's character."

They exchanged kisses and continued talking about Bogart, Ida Lupino, and Joan Leslie for a good while until they got dressed (with Phyllis putting on bra and panties under the dress), and Howard walked her to her car. When they got there, she asked him to pretend he was Bogie and she was Velma so they could exchange the kiss that hadn't happened in the movie.

On Thursday Howard worked on fixing some of the small issues that Rosie had found in the accounting connector.

As usual, he didn't have any plans for the weekend, except that if the weather allowed, he'd play a round of golf. So when Margie dropped by his office and asked him about his plans, he was doubly delighted when she suggested they go to her favorite course on Saturday afternoon. Did he really need to rest up over the weekend? Maybe he could do that on Sunday. But he wondered afterwards whether he should have accepted, since meeting with Margie off the schedule might cause some social problems. And it didn't seem right to return to Margie before all the other women had had their turn. But the idea of being with her again eventually led him to throw caution to the wind.

An hour later Louise came into his office, closed the door, and said, "You may have noticed that Bertha, in software support, is scheduled for tomorrow evening. I wasn't sure whether to include her, because she's an underperformer, but she and I had a talk, and she agreed that she could be on your schedule, she'd improve and pick up the pace and be more helpful to the users. She really wants to spend an evening with you. But for the introductory date, I recommend that you hold back a little and not give her 100%. That way she'll have something more to look for the next time."

Howard didn't like the idea of rationing his favors, but he realized that Louise's decision was the final word, so he agreed. That evening he thought over how to implement it, wondering whether to skip his pill. But that might risk disgracing himself, so he decided to take just half a one.

He'd never talked to Bertha privately before, so he was glad that she invited him to lunch on Friday. She was a little heavier than the other women, and he noticed that she had a slow, almost lethargic manner. Once he found her pace, though, he felt comfortable with her.

So he took just half a pill before leaving on Friday. He gave Bertha directions to Tommy's Chinese, and around 6:00 they met in front and went in together. Because of the clouds, he brought his umbrella. As he sat across from her, he realized that although he didn't feel, at least initially, attracted to her as to the other women, something about her lips, eyes, and facial expressions kept his interest and made him want to keep looking at her. He also wondered how much of the difference was due to the fact that he'd only taken half a pill. He now wondered whether that was a good idea.

Bertha felt how lucky she was to be with such a charming, personable man. She was determined to do her best so that this wouldn't be her last date with him, and she realized she'd have to demonstrate at work that she could be more pleasant and helpful to the users she supported. She tried to find interesting topics of conversation and demonstrate a liveliness that would match Howard's. She also understood that later in the evening she'd need to express her feelings more than she might be comfortable with. But it had been so long since she'd had such an opportunity that she hoped he wouldn't see through her efforts.

As they left the restaurant, she felt that she'd been relatively successful, due to Howard's charm and occasional smiles, to keep up her end of the conversation, and she was especially happy to be sitting at a table with such a pleasant and experienced man. He managed to shelter the two of them from the rain as they walked to his apartment, and as they walked along gently bumping each other, she thought their physical contact was a nice preview of the evening.

She didn't want to be rude by looking too closely at his books, but she did compliment him enthusiastically on his housekeeping, which was in a different league from hers. What would he think if he saw her apartment?

As they sat on the sofa sipping the port, holding hands, and starting some gentle touches, Bertha had a lot on her mind about how she should behave, but mostly she was drawn into his casual confidence and the feeling of his masculine hands, which she regarded as both alien and a rare treat. She followed his example in some gentle touching and stroking, and after a long while, she felt so enthralled by his presence and his touch that without much thought, she undid the top buttons on her blouse. Worried that she wasn't as pretty as the other women, she wondered whether that was the right thing to do. But he took it from there, and seemed quite eager as he went about his male program, and soon she realized there was nothing to do that she wasn't automatically doing.

An hour or so later, Howard wondered whether he really had held back. What a foolish request anyway, he thought. He didn't feel up to a second session, and since Bertha was smothering him in wet tears, obviously fulfilled, it seemed superfluous. "All I want in the world is to be with you again," she said, almost in tears. Howard felt very satisfied that he'd made her happy and looked forward to reports that her job performance had improved.

On Saturday, before Howard left for the course, hoping for the best, he took one of his pills. He and Margie had nearly finished their round at 5:00 p. m. when heavy rain meant the end of it. They hurried to the clubhouse, getting soaked, and Howard said, "Why don't we go to my place and get out of these wet clothes?"

Half an hour later, as they enjoyed a romantic shower, Howard and Margie barely noticed the occasional drops in pressure caused by the washing machine, which was running at the same time. Howard was just as attracted to her in the shower as he had been when they first met in the restaurant. Even though the big, freshly cleaned necklace, easily removable red outfit, makeup, and lipstick were gone, he was thrilled to be with her.

Nearly two hours later, interrupted only by transferring the clothes to the dryer, they had returned to the everyday world enough to realize they were hungry. With her clothes still in the dryer, Margie couldn't go out, so they ordered carry-out food, which they enjoyed at the table before snuggling on the sofa watching Born to Kill with Lawrence Tierney and the vicious Claire Trevor. They had another session in the morning before breakfast. Finally, Margie put on her clean, dry golf clothes, told Howard how wonderful he was, and left.

Howard spent a good part of Sunday reading and taking it easy. He reflected that he must be the luckiest man in the world, succeeding at his new job in both the technical and social dimensions. It seemed almost incredible that after three years of loneliness, he'd pleased four women in a week.

Part 3

When Howard arrived at work on Monday morning, he said hello to some people, poured himself a cup of coffee at the coffee station, and headed back to his office. He'd already noticed that the IT people seemed to spend a lot of time chatting in each others' offices and concluded that that was the reason not much got done in the department. On that morning they all seemed to be gathered in a couple of offices, as if there were some urgent social topic to discuss. Anyway, he settled in front of his computer to continue reviewing the code.

An hour or so later, Louise came into his office and closed the door behind her. He was a little confused about how to talk to her, since he immediately thought of the evening they'd spent together on his first day at work. He almost brought that up, since he figured that after another couple of women, it would be her turn again. But this time she seemed very serious, almost distressed.

"Howard, I don't know whether you've heard or not, but something has happened."

"What's that?"

"I hope you'll understand my reaction and not share it with anyone."

"Of course. I promise to keep quiet about it."

"I'm sorry to say that Larry's been in an accident."

"When?"

"Over the weekend. It was mentioned on the news. He's in the hospital, apparently in serious condition."

"I'm very sorry to hear that."

"It seems very unlikely that he'll be returning to work. Now here's the delicate part, and I'm telling you this to be honest because of our special relationship. It's been years since Larry was productive. It sounds terrible to say, but he'll be no loss to the department. Not only did he get nothing done, but he also rubbed a lot of people - in the department and outside - the wrong way. He didn't really have any friends here."

"Will you be replacing him?"

"No, we can't really justify that. I'm thinking about assigning some project management tasks to Margie. Joy will be boxing up the personal things in his office and moving the rest into the storage room."

"Is there anything I can do?" he asked.

"No. I really don't want this to affect you or your work. Please just carry on. And by the way, you may have noticed that Dottie is on your schedule for this evening."

"Oh, right. I haven't really talked to her."

"There's something I need to tell you about her. She doesn't get much done. I'll bring her to your office for just a moment this afternoon and then take her back to her office. Once she gets talking, it's almost impossible for her to stop. I don't know how you'll deal with that this evening, but I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the main thing she wants is a listener. So don't be disappointed. Just be nice and show her that you're listening."

"Thanks for the warning. I guess I can use the time to think about what a nice time the two of us can have on Friday." Howard thought for a moment that such a comment to his director might be inappropriate, but Louise smiled and said, "I'll be thinking of that, too. You're on my mind a lot these days." She stood up, walked up to Howard, and put her hand on his shoulder. He reciprocated by taking her hand and kissing it. But they both knew they were at work and had plenty on their minds.

After she left, Howard noticed a message from Joan in Accounting. "I'm busy today, but I wonder if you'd have time to have lunch together in our conference room A. I can order fancy hamburgers and sweet-potato fries." Howard didn't have lunch plans, so he accepted.

At noon he went over to Accounting and found conference room A. Joan arrived a moment later with a couple of carry-out bags, and the two of them sat down, set the food out, and began eating. Joan was wearing a dressier, tighter blouse than before. They talked briefly about the module Howard was working on, but mostly Joan asked Howard questions about himself and his previous jobs. She was very pleasant and seemed to know how to engage in a mutually interesting conversation. She seemed to have plenty of worthwhile things to say and ask, and Howard was glad that she didn't mention the Methodist group or the other invitation.

Afterwards he returned to his office. When Gail stopped by, he mentioned the lunch to Gail, who said, "Well I appreciate your letting me know."

"It was really just pleasant conversation," Howard said.

"With a woman in a sexy blouse that we'd never seen before," Gail said. "But never mind. Louise has asked me to bring Dottie around to meet you for a minute. I'll stay and take her back so she doesn't waste your time with her monologues."

A few minutes later, the two women appeared in Howard's office. Dottie looked pleasant, and physically seemed to be the kind of woman who appealed to him, but as soon as she opened her mouth, he recognized the problem.

"I've been meaning to drop by as soon as I heard you were here. I'm so happy to see you've cleaned up the office so nicely. I agree it was left in a mess. I would've helped you with that, except, Heavens, I'm not a neat-freak myself. When Ralph was alive, I did the laundry, but he ran the vacuum cleaner and did everything else. I mean everything else. Not that I paid that much attention, of course, but I think we were happy with our roles. And one of my favorite things about him was that he paid so much attention to my outfits, telling me what skirt went with what blouse and so on. I think he had a real eye for colors." She was very cheerful about it all, and Howard felt carried along in her energy.

As Gail whisked Dottie away, Howard said, "Sorry I'm busy right now. Looking forward to seeing you at 5:45."

When Dottie reappeared, this time alone, at 5:40, she opened her purse and showed Howard a couple of DVD movies, A Star is Born and La La Land. "I hope you have a DVD player," she said.

"Sure, if that's what you'd like to do," Howard said.

"I'm so looking forward to a real date night," she explained. Howard wrote down the directions to Dave's Bar and Grill, and Dottie said, "I'll just put these in my GPS system and see you there in no time." As Dottie chatted, Howard finished a couple of things on his PC, and they left together for the parking lot. As it turned out, she followed him to the restaurant. He only had to pull over a couple of times so she could catch up.

Dottie smiles a lot and looks nice, Howard thought, and he was happy to be seen with her in the restaurant. A couple of times during the meal, swept up in the conversation, or monologue really, she leaned forward and put a hand on his hand and then his wrist, and his hopes of a normal evening were briefly raised. (He'd taken his pill just in case.) But those hopes seemed to be lost in the onslaught of details about Ralph, about how his brother had subtly tried to put the moves on her, about what the brother's wife served at dinner parties, about their vacations on Myrtle Beach, and about the seafood restaurants they'd eaten at there, and about Ralph's fishing trophies. "Of course his nephews were happy to have them after he passed away."

At his apartment, Howard served some of the new sherry he'd bought, which Dottie seemed to be able to compare to a bottle of sherry Ralph had bought years before and which she still had since "it's so delicious that, sure enough, a sip is all you need." She picked up the DVDs a couple of times and held them in her hands, as if ready to bring them to the player, but she ended up putting them back, since the subjects of her reminiscences were more engaging. Howard managed to put his arm around her a couple of times, but after, "Oh, you're so nice," she returned to her stories. Finally, after she returned from a bathroom break around 10:00, she said, "Oh, it's getting so late. Howard, I've had the most wonderful evening with you. You're just as sweet and nice as I was hoping. I'll leave the movies here for another time."

Howard helped her on with her jacket and decided to give her a kiss. For just a few seconds, the two stood near the door, held hands, and exchanged a couple of quick kisses. "You're so romantic!" she said. He walked her out to her car. On the way back to the apartment, Howard reflected on Dottie's joy and realized that he had accomplished his mission with her for that evening. After all, whose satisfaction was more important? Anyway, the evenings he'd shared with the other women had brought him abundant sensual satisfaction, and, as he was beginning to appreciate, emotional fulfillment as well.

By Tuesday morning, people in IT were beginning to recover from the news about Larry. Margie invited Howard to lunch, apparently wanting to talk things over and see that he was taking things in stride. When they went back to the car afterwards, she paused a moment and held his hands. "Margie," he said, "I want to let you know what an amazing time I had with you on Saturday." That seemed to hit the spot.

"I feel exactly the same way," she said. "You were wonderful."

On Wednesday morning, a nervous and frail-looking Charlotte, a software support employee who also did technical writing, came to Howard's office. He knew she was scheduled for that evening and had been meaning to talk to her.

"Bertha practically dragged me here," she said softly. "She gave me a talking-to and said you probably had a lot on your mind and that I should go over and introduce myself."

"Well, I'm glad she did. I should've done that myself, but I've been lost in the code and trying to figure out how it matches the design. Anyway, I'm very happy to meet you. Are you free for lunch?"

Charlotte seemed a little embarrassed to be put on the spot, but agreed. So Howard said, "Great. Stop by at noon. Is that a good time for you?"

"Yes, that's fine."

The truth was that Bertha wasn't the only person who'd talked to Charlotte about Howard. During his second week, when Charlotte understood that Howard might invite her out for an evening, she'd sought advice with a good friend and neighbor of hers that she often went out walking with.

"Of course you're nervous about it," the neighbor had told her. "But if he's as nice as you say, I think you have a clear choice: your nervousness or spending some time with a man. Is that really a choice?"

"I'll just force myself," Charlotte had told her.

"Force yourself to take the first steps, and I bet after that, everything just flows. Just make sure you have your heart pills with you in case you get swept away."

"That's hard to imagine," Charlotte had said, "but who knows?"

"That's the attitude. You have nothing to lose. Just relax and let it happen." After they talked about it for another few minutes, Charlotte announced, with moist eyes, "This is exactly what I want, what I really want. It's a wonderful opportunity for me."

At lunch Howard reflected that even though Charlotte wore ordinary casual clothes with no makeup or jewelry, she had at least brushed her hair and looked pleasant. Following Joan's example in getting an engaging conversation going, he felt that by the end of the lunch, Charlotte was much more at ease in his presence. A few smiles went a long way, he felt, but Charlotte felt the effect of them more powerfully than Howard could have imagined, and, combined with the feeling of his strong hands as he'd briefly held hers after lunch, she thought of little else that afternoon.

At 5:45, just after Howard had taken his pill, Charlotte checked her purse for her pills and managed to put one foot in front of another until she reached his office. "Charlotte, I'm so happy to see you. Give me just a minute to save some things, and then I'll be ready to leave."

Charlotte imagined that if she could have suspended time at that moment, sitting in Howard's presence and watching him save files and shut down Windows, she would have. She could barely imagine a romantic dinner with him and didn't dare fathom what could follow that. She tried to pay attention as he gave her directions, but she knew them already, having looked up Dave's Bar and Grill and practiced driving there.

The moment came soon enough, with Howard and Charlotte sitting across from each other at Dave's, with Howard realizing that he was with the last of the IT women before beginning the cycle again with Margie. He decided to make the most of his last taste of novelty by treating Charlotte with all the charm he could muster. In addition, he was determined not to treat her as the last in the list: as a Gilbert IT woman, she deserved whatever he could give her. Although she seemed quiet and hesitant at the beginning of the meal, he made sure the conversation was lively enough that she was laughing and smiling by the end. The cocktails helped with that as well. At that point, she seemed to be staring at him, hanging on his every word. After they left the restaurant, they agreed that they'd drive her car to his apartment and park it in a visitor's spot there.

After they took a bathroom break and settled on the sofa, Charlotte thought she should keep her pills nearby and even explain to Howard, just in case, that she might need to take one. She was relieved that he accepted that and seemed to be very understanding about it. Accepting the first couple of Howard's kisses was awkward for her, but after that, something snapped and she silently surrendered, gladly savoring his kisses and even, after a while, undoing his shirt buttons and reaching in to move her hands around his chest. She tried to stifle her sighs but soon realized it was no use. She found herself sighing loudly, whispering, "Oh, Howard," over and over, and even starting to undo her blouse buttons.

Howard was impressed at the progress she'd made in about fifteen minutes, but he was alarmed that her loud sighing was accompanied by what seemed to be respiratory distress. He reached over, picked up her pill bottle, and offered her one. "Yes, thank you so much," she said. The pill seemed to handle the physical symptoms, he thought, and her sighing and passionate kissing persuaded him it was time to lead her into the bedroom.

For the next half hour or so, she gave all the signs of being passionately involved, and after that, he wasn't surprised that, as they lay there in bliss, she leaned over him, wept with joy, told him he was incredible, and smothered him with wet kisses. When they reached a state of complete relaxation, Charlotte happened to say, "That was so wonderful. I wish we could go on like that forever."

Howard was happy to take that as a cue to begin another session, and Charlotte once again seemed to lose herself in the joy of surrender. But after about ten minutes, she began to have trouble breathing and said she had pain in her right arm. Howard quickly grabbed her pill bottle and handed her one. She asked for another, but then she said, "Oh, Howard, I hate to be like this, but my pain is getting worse."

"What can I do for you?"

"I think I need to go to the hospital. This has happened before, but not in this circumstance. Look in the notebook in my purse and find the number and the doctor's name."

Howard of course was very frightened but made the phone call and was given directions for the emergency room. "Should I call an ambulance?" He asked.

"No, they're so expensive. Let's just get dressed, and you can drive me in my car."

Fifteen minutes later, they walked into the emergency room together, and the clerk took Charlotte's information. After only a minute or two (the staff had been waiting for her), and nurse came out and took them to a curtained-off cubicle not far away. While they did some tests that needed privacy, Charlotte said, "Call my friend Julie. Get my cell phone and speed-dial one." Two staff members wheeled Charlotte away for more tests, and Howard went back to the waiting room to make the call.

After he explained to Julie who he was and why Charlotte was at the hospital, Julie calmly said, "Howard, no matter what happens, you should have no regrets. She wanted to spend an evening with you so badly that she would gladly accept any consequence. I'll be there in a few minutes and meet you in the emergency room."

Fifteen minutes later, a distressed-looking woman appeared in the emergency room, looked around, and walked up to Howard. "Howard?" she asked.

"Yes." She gave him a quick hug, and they talked to the clerk.

As they headed up to the fourth floor, Howard said, "What have I done?"

"You've made my friend very happy," Julie said. "You're a wonderful man, and for Charlotte, you're a god."

When they stepped inside Charlotte's suite in the cardiac unit, and found her hooked up to multiple lines, Howard couldn't have felt much worse. But when he saw the expression on Charlotte's face, he realized he was doing exactly the right thing by being there. He and Julie stood on either side of her bed, trying to hold her hands but because of the IVs, only holding her fingers. "I'm so glad to see you both," Charlotte said. "I think I'll be OK, really. They just need to keep me overnight."

Howard felt inspired to put his hand on Charlotte's forehead and stroke her hair, and doing that provided a moving scene for the two women. After a while, they sat down. About midnight, a nurse came in, looked at the numbers on the instruments, and confirmed that Charlotte needed to stay overnight but would almost certainly be discharged in the morning. Charlotte pleaded with Howard to go home and get some sleep, and he finally agreed. He put her car keys into her purse, gave her a sweet kiss, and returned to the emergency room, where he called a taxi to take him home. He realized the loneliness and deprivation he'd suffered after the divorce also affected women and that it was part of his mission at work to help relieve that suffering.

Part 4

On Thursday morning, as soon as he'd poured his coffee, Howard sent a message to Louise and Gail saying he urgently needed to meet with them. The three sat down in Louise's office, and he explained what had happened and why Charlotte would probably be taking the day off. "Oh, my goodness," Louise said, "you must be so upset. But you must not let this incident cause you to rethink your role here. Of course there are risks, but the rewards make it so worthwhile for everyone involved."

Then Gail said, "Howard, Margie is scheduled for Friday, and I think she'd be very disappointed if you didn't show up and do your best for her. Think about that. She needs you, and we need you."

That made a big impression on Howard, and he felt determined to carry on. He got a message from Charlotte, who was at home, later that day, saying that she was feeling much better. "They're changing my meds," she wrote. "I should be back at work on Friday. With the new meds, I should be handle things better on my next turn."

On Friday morning, Charlotte appeared back in the office, and her colleagues treated her with kindness and understanding. She stopped briefly in Howard's office and told him, "I spent an evening in paradise with you, and I hope to have another one in three weeks."

At dinner with Margie that evening at Tommy's Chinese, after Howard told her that he felt bad about Charlotte and hoped people didn't hold it against him, Margie said, "Are you kidding? The story of how you drove her to the hospital and spent time with her has everyone convinced of your kindness and concern. Your role in the department is even more important now." That evening, and on Saturday morning, Margie's energy and enthusiasm seemed to reflect the change in her attitude. Howard's feeling that he was becoming emotionally involved with the IT women was strengthened with the way the women treated him in every new encounter.

Howard's dates with Louise and Gail in his fourth week confirmed the increasing romantic depth of his relationships. But there was another aspect that also changed. On Wednesday of his first week, something had taken place that made a big impression on Gail: Howard's reaction to her bright-pink lingerie set had made quite a splash. He'd found Gail's outfit shockingly sexy and beautiful, and he hadn't hidden his enthusiasm. Over the next few weeks, more women brought sexy outfits to model for Howard. Phyllis, whose session always began with a vintage movie on TV, no longer needed to be asked to remove her underwear beforehand and lost her dress by the end of the movie.

Howard, fueled by his pills and the memory of three years of deprivation, was equal to these costumes and always expressed his appreciation in compliments. Did Joan in Accounting realize what was going on in IT? Maybe not, but her outfits were more and more enticing, and she found reasons to invite Howard for lunch. Howard dutifully reported their conversations to Gail, who sometimes commented sarcastically on Joan's "tarty" clothes.

Over the next few months, Howard continuing entertaining the women employees, usually three times a week following the schedule, but also sometimes on the weekends. He played golf with a few of them, took them to movies and museums, and sometimes met their friends. Howard occasionally reflected that he had happy marriages with nine women. Even Dottie, who after a handful of visits to Howard's apartment to chat, finally required only a nudge to begin a physical relationship. The women were a little competitive, but mostly their sense of fairness and willingness to follow the schedule made them realize what a gem they had in Howard and look forward to their next date. They had photos of Howard on their computers, but not publicly displayed. In the office it was easy to see, on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, who was Howard's date for the evening, since they dressed up nicely with subtle makeup and jewelry. Howard treated them all like queens, and each one felt loved, admired, and cherished. He knew it was the right thing to do, but also he had strong feelings for each one and was able to make each one understand, at the restaurant or his apartment, that she was the center of his world. In return, he enjoyed their love and admiration and thought of himself as the luckiest man alive.

Those positive feelings translated in some cases to more motivation at work, but overall the productivity of the IT department only improved through the things that Howard worked on personally. He managed to fix or rewrite programs that Gilbert had given up on, and employees in other departments were grateful that more of their workflows were automated. In spite of those improvements, the company was on a slow decline, with fewer children to buy their products. When Howard looked at the financial results, he was concerned about whether the company would stay afloat long enough for him to put in his five-and-a-half years. That's when he'd be eligible for Medicare and when he planned to apply for Social Security. Of course he was so attached to the women that he'd consider staying longer, but he didn't spend a lot of time thinking about that.

Later that year, Louise happened to mention to Howard that Betty and Bill's work on the users' PCs had became the source of more complaints. "I've had some conversations with them about their work," Louise said, "and they admitted that their children had been encouraging them to consider a retirement home with a memory-care unit." A week or so after that, Louise sent out an invitation to a farewell luncheon for them. She found them and brought them to the conference room. After Betty and Bill's son led them out of the building afterwards, Louise, Gail, and Howard met in Louise's office to discuss who would do user hardware support. "We can't hire replacements for them, since it was well known that they did more harm than good," Louise said. "But the users in the building occasionally need help with their PCs."

Howard didn't really feel pressure to speak up, but he thought he should. "I have no special experience in computer hardware, except for things like replacing hard drives and monitors. If you think that's enough, I guess I could do that kind of thing now and then." Louise and Gail looked at Howard with affection and admiration. "Thank you so much, Howard," Gail said. "I don't think it will take up much of your time. We have a set of imaged drives ready to go when users have problems. That should minimize the time you'd need to spend."

One day a few months later, Howard was hard at work in his office when he heard a door slam. That was unusual, he thought, since the IT department was usually quite calm. But he soon found an explanation, in the form of an email from Neil (the network administrator who kept his office door closed) to all employees, with the subject line "Outta here!"

"I found another job, this time at a real company. This company can shove it, starting from the execs who let Louise put up with all this shit in IT, the department where nothing gets done. Here's a warning to all the guys at Gilbert: if you want gonorrhea, Joan in accounting is your woman. She has a nice supply and will share. Sayonara!"

About half an hour after Howard finished reading that horrible bridge-burning letter, Louise rushed into Howard's office, explaining that Neil had left and pleading with Howard to find a way to withdraw the email. Together they rushed into Neil's office and found, to their surprise, that he'd left a paper on his desk with all the network passwords. Howard managed to log into the email server, find Neil's sent emails, and delete it.

"But really," he told Louise, "it's probably too late. I could only delete the ones that hadn't been read yet."

Louise sat there, trying to collect herself. "Anyway," she said, "I'm glad we warned you about the women in accounting. It's probably true."

Then Gail said, "We need to figure out everything Neil did. Can you read his emails? That should give us an idea."

They glanced through the emails together and found, in addition to lots of messages to and from Joan, messages from network-security vendors reminding him that the anti-virus and anti-malware programs on the network and users' PCs urgently needed to be updated.

"Can you take care of that, please, Howard?"

"I've never worked with that, but I can look into it." He figured that he was probably the best employee in Gilbert to work on it, now that Neil had left. Besides, how could he say no to Gail?

"If it's just a matter of updating the programs, I should be able to take care of that," he said.

"Oh, thank you so much."

So he dedicated an afternoon the next day to finding the programs, updating them, and directing the reports and warnings to his own account. After that first afternoon, it didn't take much time, but it meant that about once a week he had to deal with the exceptions and the warnings from the anti-virus and anti-malware companies.

Very few Gilbert employees had any concern about computer viruses and malware, Howard quickly realized. As recommended by the software vendors and by good IT practice, he sent out warnings to all users to educate them about phishing attempts, explaining for example that most attacks happen through unverified phone calls. He succeeded in raising their awareness of the dangers without troubling them or taking their time with the system messages. When he explained his priorities to Louise, she told him she agreed that the users should be kept aware of the dangers without being troubled by any security-related tasks.

Part 5

For the next few years, Howard's relationship with the women continued to deepen. He sometimes found Joy and Dottie, with their gabbiness, distracted, but he knew that the social aspect of his mission required him to treat them all fairly. At the office, the women talked about him, but never mentioned any particulars of their encounters with him, since they understood that such talk would lead to jealousy.

There was, however, plenty to know and tell: Howard was able to adapt his romantic approach and techniques to each woman, and they in turn adapted to his preferences, in the form of revealing outfits at the restaurant and appealing lingerie outfits in his apartment, all of which were fine-tuned to respond to his compliments. The overall result was that Howard found himself in a kind of sensual paradise, with each woman responding to his hints and wanting to maintain her unspoken competitive position.

Howard, with little help from the others, eventually got most of the manufacturing and accounting modules working, with the exception of accounting's general ledger functions. Those required a lot of manual processing in accounting, mostly in the form of spreadsheet work.

The one big change in 2022 was a very sorrowful one: even though Charlotte seemed to recover from her romantically induced heart attack in Howard's first year, three years later there was another, similar incident, with a different outcome. This time, she only survived a few days afterwards. Howard was there with her, along with her friend Julie, during those last days, with Gail and Louise stopping in sometimes.

On what turned out to be the second-last day, Gail spent part of the evening in Charlotte's hospital room, allowing Howard and Charlotte's friend Julie to spend some time having dinner in the hospital cafeteria.

"All her relatives live in Steubenville," she told Howard, who pictured the city on the map in eastern Ohio and remembered people saying that the residents were not known for their cultural or intellectual sophistication.

"I found a phone number for her one of her sisters," Julie said, "and they plan to come to Columbus in a couple of days. I gave them your phone number. They know about you and Charlotte."

When the dreadful moment arrived, the sisters were on their way to Columbus, and Howard and Julie assured the hospital staff that the next of kin would be available to sign the papers. The sisters, Tammy and Pam, arrived in Columbus, and Howard and Julie introduced themselves to them in the hospital corridor, and from there they were taken into a small conference room to sign papers and make the arrangements. Howard found them somewhat confused by being in a strange place in a big city.

"Since you were so close to Charlotte," Tammy said, "we wonder if you could set up the funeral. The money can come out of your share of the will. You're the executor, so you'll get extra. Charlotte told us she was splitting things three ways, between you and the two of us. We'll come back for the funeral after you send us the date and location. Just let us know when it's all set up. And since there are three different religions in the family, it would be best to have a short nondenominational service. Since you probably knew her best, can you give a little speech?"

"Of course," Howard said, even though, being on the quiet side, he disliked in public speaking.

"Just say something nice about her and how she has angel wings and is looking down on us from the clouds of heaven."

Howard found that conversation, especially the last remark, troubling. Tammy and Pam somehow managed to find their way out of the hospital, out of Columbus, and back onto I-70 to return to Steubenville.

That evening, after visiting a funeral home near Gilbert to make the arrangements, Howard asked the employee for advice about giving a speech. "Apparently the family members belong to multiple religions," he said, "so my remarks should be nondenominational."

"In that case," the funeral-home manager said, "just talk about Charlotte's trip to heaven and getting her wings. That will be a great comfort to everybody."

Howard didn't object, but he wasn't convinced, and certainly didn't want to distract the relatives and IT employees by saying something that would cause division. So after a simple dinner of noodles and spaghetti sauce, he spent some time searching the internet for the answer. To his dismay, after searching on authoritative sites, he concluded that no religion taught that humans become angels. Apparently that was movie theology, from such films as It's a Wonderful Life. How embarrassing, he thought, and he decided not to mention angels in his speech.

Four days later, as about thirty of Charlotte's colleagues and relatives gathered at the funeral home to pay their last respects, the air was full of comments about Charlotte's wings and, how she was being welcomed into heaven. Even though he felt terribly awkward and embarrassed, Howard managed to steer his little speech towards on earthly things, maintaining his composure while bringing tears to all, talking about what a lovely person Charlotte had been (he almost slipped and referred to her as an angel) and about how much she meant to him. He was relieved to see that his colleagues at Gilbert didn't mix with the Steubenvillenians, who might have been shocked to learn that he had a similar relationship with the other Gilbert women. He knew that what had become normal in the IT department at Gilbert might not seem so to visitors from eastern Ohio, just as what seemed normal to almost everyone in attendance, that Charlotte was now wearing wings and looking down at them from heaven, would not seem so to anyone who'd seen the authoritative web sites he'd seen.

When the service ended in late afternoon, Louise set an example to the Gilbert IT employees by heading back to work. Howard did the same after saying a few parting words to Charlotte's sisters and promising to get busy working with the lawyer on probate very soon.

When Howard got back to work, he checked the reservation system and confirmed that this evening was for Louise. He looked forward to enjoying her new figure, since over the past couple of years she'd lost weight and how had what he thought was an ideal figure. Over dinner, they reminisced about Charlotte, and Louise explained that she'd been a very productive employee in her first few years at Gilbert.

Even though Howard had demonstrated calm and composure at the funeral home and at dinner, the heightened emotions in pillow talk made him break down, and he let go of the tears he'd been holding back. Louise responded with hugs and kisses, and realized how deeply Howard had felt towards Charlotte and towards all the women.

Six months later, after working with the attorney who'd drawn up Charlotte's will and making a couple of Sunday trips to Steubenville for signatures, Howard received his executor fee and his share of the funds, out of which he paid himself back for the funeral home. Another person might have felt that he earned the $4,273.00, but Howard felt awkward about it and could never decide what to do with it. That amount would certainly have bought a nice new golf outfit or a dozen boxed sets of film noir DVDs, but it didn't seem right.

It was in early 2023 that Howard read an email from the anti-malware company that warned of a new virus, this time a psychological and cognitive virus. Apparently it had been observed that heavy sitcom viewers were at risk of developing an obsessive-compulsive disorder in which the sitcoms absorbed all their attention and had trouble focusing on other matters. As Howard read the characteristics of the at-risk users, he realized that they applied to most of the women in the IT department. He forwarded the warning to Louise, Gail, and Margie, and invited them to a meeting to discuss the risk.

"I think the future of the department is at risk from this virus," he said, "since most of our colleagues are in the high-risk category."

The four discussed the risk, but there was no action to take other than to encourage the at-risk employees to limit their sitcom viewing. They concluded that the best antidote for now was for Howard to take advantage of his dinner dates with the women to discuss other topics with them - movies, golf, scandals in accounting, and so on. He did that, but it was challenging and he didn't want to distract them from their main interest during the date.

While the specifics of what took place during the dates were confidential, a few months later, Howard was sorry to have to report to Louise that he felt that Joy, Phyllis, Rosie, Bertha, and Dottie were all affected by the virus to some degree or another. This came as no surprise to Louise, since she, Gail, and Margie had all observed that casual conversations were almost entirely focused on sitcoms and even that some technical meetings had been turning into discussions about plots, characters, and actors in the programs.

Part 6

Six months after that the conclusion was undeniable, to the point that the affected workers could no longer focus on other topics, such as work. In a normal IT department, those workers would have been put on probation and then terminated, but policies at Gilbert and in IT meant that they'd just be given no more assignments. With the programming tasks nearly complete except for general ledger, and with routine PC and network tasks mostly down to a routine, Louise, Gail, Margie, and Howard felt that the four of them could more or less handle things.

At the same time, when the affected women had dates with Howard, he was terribly disappointed that after dinner they rushed to his apartment to watch sitcoms and went home after that. "I've given them so much," he told Louise, "but now they have nothing to give back to me. I feel jilted, but at least I have the three of you."

Another factor in the decision to keep the affected women was that Gilbert's revenue continued a straight-line decline. This didn't surprise Howard, since he had access to the revenue data and had been watching it since he was hired. In fact, Louise and Gail had been urging him to postpone work on general ledger for the past few years.

The reasons for this finally came out in a meeting with the three women. Howard learned something he had never put together: Louise and Gail were, within a month or so, the same age as himself. "Let's keep this going till November 2024," Louise concluded. "That's when we can get general ledger fixed and finally reveal the truth of Gilbert's financial status."

"I'm a few months younger," Margie said, "but if I can be on the transition team, I can stop working in November or December and officially retire on my birthday."

Howard learned that the three women had had this plan in mind for some time and seemed to feel a tremendous solidarity. He'd originally suspected that they were somewhat competitive rather than cooperative, so this was good news. It was also good news that they were including him in the plan, and not just the plan for Gilbert but also for after.

Howard had enjoyed his break from work in late 2018 and early 2019, but when he thought of retirement, he didn't think he'd like living that way indefinitely. "We're sure you'll want to join us afterwards," Gail told him, offering him an invitation to share his post-retirement life with them.

"We're talking about buying some adjoining condos," Louise said, "and we're hoping that you'll go in with us."

"Of course, I'll have to consider my finances, but I should think so," Howard said, realizing that the moment he dreaded so much - saying goodbye to the women he loved and leaving the social aspect of his job - would never have to happen.

He got to work on a fix for the general ledger system, and Margie installed it on the test system and tested it thoroughly. When it came time to deploy it in the production system, Howard went with Louise as she presented it to accounting. The chief financial officer and his staff invited them to stay for another meeting after that, to verify the results and walk through the algorithms and assumptions.

At the end, they all realized what they'd been pretending to ignore for the past two or three years, that the spreadsheet work that accounting had been doing was flawed and that Gilbert was insolvent and would have to look for a buyer.

One was found shortly afterwards, and Gilbert was sold for a paltry sum. Joy, Phyllis, Rosie, Bertha, and Dottie were offered a generous severance package, which turned out to be the shock that finally woke them out of their sitcom-induced trance. Margie was offered a position on the transition team.

Howard, Louise, and Gail, and a few months later, Margie, applied for Social Security and Medicare. They assessed their financial situations, sold their houses or terminated their apartment leases, and purchased a lot of four adjoining condominiums. Howard had saved the reservation system and installed it on their home PCs, with only four users. To celebrate their retirement, they spent a month-long vacation in Florida, part of which Howard paid for with the $4,273.00 from Charlotte's will, which he thought she would have approved of.

Despite some social awkwardness and some small conflicts, for example Gail not leaving Howard's shower as clean as he liked, they settled into their new condos and lived like a sort of happy family. Howard, encouraged by the women, set up his living room and bedroom as exact replicas of the ones in his apartment.