I showed up about five minutes late to our weekly staff meeting. It was still at the bull shit part of the meeting with everyone talking about their weekend, so it was cool. There are about a dozen of us around a large oval table, mostly engineering leads and specialists; I am one of the specialists in industrial wastewater design. Sally was at the opposite end of the table; we made glancing eye contact. We are a large engineering company that will remain anonymous for this journal for obvious reasons. An upper-level manager that we should call George, popped in and said we had finally signed the contract to upgrade a wastewater treatment plant and we would be working with Conrad Construction (fake name). Holy shit ran through my brain drowning out the rest of what he said; Ally worked for Conrad. I came back to reality and realized he was talking to me and Sally “could you two come by my office after this meeting?” I said “sure,” I think.

Ally is an expeditor at her construction company. Her job is to go talk with other companies, suppliers, or whoever whenever there is a bottleneck in getting a job done and they need to get cooperation in solving a problem. She is very good at her job; she gets results. She has always been shameless about using her sexuality to get concessions from other companies in the male-dominated construction business. Men want to see her coming because she makes every man feel like he is so special he might get lucky. My theory why she had not been called out on her recent clothing upgrade (or downgrade?) was that her management liked the results she got (and she manipulated them too).  They left her alone to get results however she got them. Privileges of being a beautiful, smart woman. Had George already talked to Ally? Had he tried to look up her skirt? Did Ally play with him? Would he become one of her man toys? He would have no idea of her powers?  Would the Craving infect him?