Chapter 14

Lucas couldn’t bring himself to say anything to Brooke at first. After untidily swallowing his cum, she rose up from between his legs and jiggled her breasts in his face, laughing softly.

“There! You already look, like…so much less stressed out,” she chirped, straightening up in front of him. “So anytime you feel like you need an extra…helping hand…from your secretary, just let me know, Lucas. I’m here for you.”

Lucas was under no delusions that he needed to somehow reassert his authority, and quickly, before things with Brooke got totally out of hand. 

‘But they’re already totally out of hand!’ he thought to himself immediately, breathing hard as he stared up at the grinning girl in front of him. Did she look…maybe even a little different from before? Were her cheeks a little fuller? Rosier!? 

Lucas shut his eyes tightly and shook his head. 

‘Now I’m just seeing things,’ he thought. ‘I’m losing my mind all over again…and it’s not even lunch time.’

Without having a set plan, his eyes shot open, and he felt his lips curling into an ‘o” sound to begin speaking. He didn’t have any clue what he was about to start saying, but he just knew that he needed to start saying something to re-establish some semblance of authority.

A sharp knock on his office door made him start, interrupting whatever it was that he was about to say. Brooke started a bit, also surprised, but she recovered quickly, turning her body and purposefully striding up to the door. Lucas just managed to hurriedly zip up his pants and re-buckle his belt when Brooke opened the door halfway. James was standing there in the doorway, a notepad under his arm, looking surprised and blinking his eyes rapidly. 

“Hello,” said Brooke in a friendly “business-casual” tone, “Mr. Mineur is…yes, he’s ready to take visitors now.”

“Brooke, you can…you can just let him in, ok?” said Lucas, shaking his head slightly. “We all know who everyone is around here.”

“Just keeping up the…the pretense of professionalism,” said Brooke brightly, giving Lucas a bashful smile as she stepped aside to let James come in. As she did so, she peered at James, who was already socially awkward enough, but now that he had encountered Brooke, he was even more awkward than usual. 

“B-Brooke!” he stuttered, stepping back a little. “I…I, uh…I d-didn’t expect you to…uh…h-hi! Heheh, how are you doing?”

“I’m good!” piped Brooke. “GREAT, actually, haha…ummmm….James! That’s your name, right?”

James’s face brightened and he blinked again; there was a rare sparkle in his eyes.

“You…you remembered my name!?” He stumbled a little and caught himself on his back foot.

“Ahaha, well, I…uh, it was just a couple days ago…that we met,” smiled Brooke.

“Still though, um…heheh, you know…new office environment, and oh wow! All these new people everywhere, right!? Hahaha, but…uh, but well, it’s just nice…nice to see you, Brooke. Nice to have you here.”

‘Oh my god,’ thought Lucas, rolling his eyes to himself even as he reeled from his recent orgasm, and the close call of zipping his pants back up, ‘He’s totally into her!’ Lucas looked up and saw that, indeed, James was blushing, fidgeting with the notebook in his hand, and looking for all the world like someone who was smitten. Lucas suddenly couldn’t help but smile. James’s awkward antics were exactly what he needed to pull himself back up and remind Brooke (and himself) who was in charge. 

“Haha, thanks James!” exclaimed Brooke, “I’m soooo happy to be here, let me tell you!”

“Oh-kaaay Brooke,” said Lucas, shaking his head slightly even as he smiled (in what he thought was an easy, unaffected way), “How about you let James come in and then try your hand at making some coffee, ok?”

“Mmhm, of course!” said Brooke cheerily, and she sidled on by James without hesitation, turning to the left and going on down the hallway towards the break room. James watched her go, his head turning sideways slightly as he watched Brooke’s ass bounce slightly behind her. 

“So…James?”

Lucas was enjoying this dynamic. Already, the memory of Brooke’s flashing green eyes as she had gone through that growth spurt in the lab was beginning to fade away a little. Yeah, she was a little taller and curvier now…yeah she was a little cuter…but nothing…NOTHING…compared to what she had been the night before. Or even to what she had been earlier on Monday morning, after her weekend growth. No, she was just maybe a little above average now. And, of course, James was eating it up. 

“Oh! Oh sorry Lucas!” said James, snapping his head back and lowering it in embarrassment. “It’s just that…wow I hadn’t really seen Brooke since before last weekend.”

“Yep, yep, the bots have been busy, huh?” chuckled Lucas mildly, delighting in how casual he sounded. 

“So that’s…that’s just after four days!?” asked James, coming closer and bending down over Lucas’s desk, and speaking in an excited whisper. 

“I, uh, well, yes,” said Lucas, realizing now how little of the whole picture James was privy to, “But, well, she’s gone through several…cycles…already. Rick just injected her with the second-generation batch this morning.”

“Oh wow so that’s pretty much all first-gen stuff, that’s happened to her!?” asked James again, still whispering but not otherwise bothering to hide his excitement. “Lucas…I mean, I don’t want to be, uhh…I just…is it ok if I say it?” 

“Go ahead, James,” chuckled Lucas, drinking in the experience of James’s enjoyment. His colleague had NO IDEA the bar that Lucas had set the previous night. 

“God Brooke is hot!” burst out James in an incredulous whisper. “Did you, like, see her boobs!? Oh my god, and her butt??”

“Yeah, she’s got a little something going on. They’re not bad at all,” said Lucas mildly. 

“Do you know if she has a boyfriend?” asked James, leaning in a little closer and lowering his voice. 

“Ahaha! I’m, uh…sure I don’t know,” laughed Lucas, not quite realizing why he found James’s question so funny. “I don’t think she does, actually.” 

James’s face brightened up, and Lucas leaned back in his chair, smiling up at the software engineer. He couldn’t help but think that, at this point, Brooke and James would be perfect for each other. Maybe Brooke was already a little out of James’s league…no, wait, there he went again, overestimating her just from his memories of last night. 

“You think I should…try for it?” asked James, eyeing Lucas seriously. 

“What, ask her out?” Lucas was suddenly met by the reality of what was going on, and even though he was still sitting, he found himself backpedaling a little.

“I, uh, look James, I know you think she’s cute,” said Lucas, peering around his colleague to make sure that Sophia wasn’t eavesdropping, or that Brooke wasn’t stumbling around the corner with his coffee, “But, I mean, she’s currently a test subject for the company. I’m not sure it would really, uh, be a good idea to try and date her right now. Especially, considering, well…you know…that there might be changes.”

“Yeah, you’re so right about that Lucas,” responded James immediately, hanging his head a little dejectedly. “She’s already too good for me anyway. Imagine what she’ll be like a week from now…or god, a month from now!? Haha, she probably won’t even look at me when I walk by!”

“I…now, James, don’t talk like that,” chided Lucas, even as he felt the strange, elastic heaviness of the real meaning of James’s words covering him. James was more right than he realized…or was he!? Lucas didn’t know…when it came down to it, now that there was no remote to control everything, he really had no idea what Brooke would be like a month from now. 

“I only meant that it’s probably not a great idea, for the sake of your own emotional, uh, stability, to date someone who’s undergoing all kinds of, you know, dramatic changes.” Lucas felt satisfied with his explanation, despite the slightly ominous portendings of James’s words still hanging in the air. 

“Yeah, I, uh…I get it,” said James, nodding. “I just hope, haha, that I can…you know, keep it together around her!”

“What are you talking about, James?” asked Lucas. “You work with Olivia and, well, not to be blunt or rude, but Olivia’s” — and here he once again checked the hallway — “In a different league from Brooke.”

“Yeah, but Olivia’s engaged,” said James simply. “To Chase! You think I would never even dream of thinking about — ”

“You don’t have to explain it to me,” interrupted Lucas, waving his hand. “6’5 crossfit instructor, yadda yadda, I know.”

“But Brooke,” said James, “Well, if she’s single…”

“James…eheheh, why don’t you show me what you’ve got on that notepad there?” Lucas was already starting to tire of this conversation, even as he had enjoyed it so much in the beginning. This kind of trajectory was normal for a conversation with James about non-work-related issues.

Right then, Brooke came back around the corner, spilling a little coffee from the mug she was carrying. 

“Whoops! Sorry I’ll wipe that right up!” she giggled, her eyes crinkling in affectionate embarrassment as she handed Lucas the full mug.

‘Looks like she’s back to her clumsy old self,’ Lucas thought, with an undeniable sense of smugness (and relief), as he accepted the mug.

“Just…heh, you don’t have to fill it up to the brim like that, ok Brooke?” he said. The pleasure of his own authority was once more starting to course through him; he had shoved Brooke’s recent blowjob back down into his mind. 

“Of course, Mr. Mineur!” chirped Brooke as she bent down with some napkins to wipe up the floor. James watched the whole scene, his eyes glued on Brooke’s backside as she bent over. Lucas tasted the coffee and made a face.

“Ok, now, Brooke,” he remarked, as she straightened up from cleaning the floor, “I know that I didn’t really give you any instructions to go on about how to make this, but…next time let’s go for a lot less sugar, ok? And a little more cream?”

“More cream…certainly,” cooed Brooke, nodding slowly at him as she went up and down on the balls of her feet, causing her breasts to bounce a bit. Lucas rolled his eyes and sighed, ignoring the slight twinge in his cock. He turned back to James, who was now staring at Brooke’s breasts with his mouth slightly open.

“So…your notepad?” asked Lucas. He was glad that James was there — even though Brooke had literally just blown him a few minutes before, Lucas felt confident that he could resist her advances, when he needed to. James, on the other hand, didn’t look like he was in any position to resist anything from her. Subconsciously, Lucas basked in the self-satisfaction of knowing that his will was stronger…and his standards higher. 

“Oh…Oh, sorry!” stammered James, tearing his eyes away from Brooke’s chest. “So…so I was going through the protocols of the integration testing for the — ”

“Oh it’s about that — hold on a second,” said Lucas coolly, now feeling totally in control as he turned to his secretary. “Brooke, as I’m working on this with James, why don’t you try your hand at making an itinerary for me today? You’ll see a copy of my schedule on my desk there. I’d like you to organize it into a cogent list of tasks that is easy to understand, ok?”

“But aren’t you gonna measure me, Mr. Mineur?” asked Brooke, crossing her feet over each other as she batted her eyes up at him. “Rick said that it was important for us to get all the original measurem —”

“Yes, yes, we’ll do that,” said Lucas impatiently, “But right now, I’m asking you to do something else for me, alright? Do you think you can manage that, Brooke?” 

“Of course — yes!” she replied, backing down with a smile as she fetched the copy of the schedule and retreated to her desk. For the next twenty minutes or so, Lucas and James were occupied with the integration testing issue; Lucas found that he took an inordinate amount of enjoyment in acting normally, in being himself, in melting back into his role as office manager, with Brooke as his secretary, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened, or was happening. 

Once James had left, Lucas felt the mood suddenly change. It was just him and Brooke in his office now; part of him was dreading having to deal with her insufferably flirty attitude, but another part of him was strangely, bizarrely excited by the idea of having to fend off someone who, the night before, had been such a goddess. Lucas couldn’t avoid the fact that the events of the past few days had utterly discombobulated his sense of foundation. When James had been there, working on a technical issue, everything seemed grounded enough — but when it was just him and Brooke in the room, everything firm and secure felt like it was dissolving away, always threatening Lucas with the memory of the previous night, of his total loss of control. Whenever Lucas lost the ability to distract himself, the memory itself was terrifying, freakish, and frightfully raw. But no one, not Rick, not Sophia…and maybe not even really Brooke, as she was now, understood the full extent of his abjectness that night. Lucas had had no idea that he could possibly go down that far, and now that he had, well…it was a disquieting thought to say the least. 

He glanced furtively over at Brooke. She had apparently finished making his itinerary and was now occupying herself with a crossword puzzle, her chin in her hand, with her brow knotted in concentration. Lucas blinked, and for an odd moment, he felt an odd sense of pity for her. This girl had just stumbled into an interview a few days before, for a job she wasn’t even qualified for, and she had been promptly put through the physical and emotional wringer, first growing into a beautiful young woman, and then ultimately into a demi-goddess, and then back into a normal average person, all in the span of a few days. And on top of that, she had seen her boss in the most vulnerable and pathetic state possible…it all must have been dizzyingly disorienting for her, and for this one moment, Lucas felt a stab of sympathy for her. Of course the poor girl was hitting on him — she had no idea what to think about everything, and she was just reaching out to him for some kind of support, some kind of foundation! 

Lucas felt a jostle of activity in his loins as he felt himself harden again, looking at her. He had let everything get so terribly far out of control the night before, but it all turned out ok. She was still his. And now, he was in a better position than ever to oversee her growth and augmentation. What would she be like, and look like, in a week? In a month? In a year!? Lucas didn’t really know. All he knew was that, right now, he would have to try and put up some semblance of a wall between them, to discourage her from flirting too blatantly. She wasn’t anywhere close to earning his arousal and affection…and besides, as he reminded himself with a sure sense of gentle smugness, he was still the one in charge. Rick might have been making the nanobots and programming them and adding this-and-that feature and all kinds of clever ideas and on and on…but he, Lucas, was the one Rick was making them for. He was overseeing the whole enterprise. 

Sophia walked by his open door slowly, glancing for a long moment into his office as she kept moving. Lucas stared back at her, meeting her glance and challenging her to say or do something. He saw her eyes go to Brooke, and then back to him, and then back to Brooke. For a split second, Lucas became afraid that she had somehow overseen the blowjob, but he overcame this fear without a second thought. The door had been closed, and they hadn’t been anywhere near the window by the door. Sophia had no idea…she was just fishing around for something, and Lucas wasn’t going to give it to her. He stared back at her, arching his eyebrow, as if to say ‘What? Bring it on’ and he saw Sophia sigh through her nostrils as she kept moving, going into her office. 

Lucas nodded to himself, satisfied. He looked over at Brooke again. 

“Hey Brooke,” he heard himself say lightly, with a hint of buoyancy, “How’s that itinerary coming over there?”

Brooke dropped her pencil in her excitement as she stood up from her desk and hurried over a sheet of paper. Lucas smiled slightly as he accepted it, enjoying the slight fumble and bumble of Brooke’s demeanor; her cheeriness might have already gotten old, but at least it was predictable. 

“Oh-kay, uh-huh,” he muttered, leaning back in his black leather chair as he examined Brooke's work, with her standing eagerly by with her hands folded. It wasn’t that great of a job, really. For starters, it wasn’t that legible, and written in the same pencil that Brooke had been using for her crossword puzzle. And a number of meetings appeared to be out of order, or at least not given their proper due time-wise. 

“So,” Lucas said after a few long moments of looking it over, “This, uh…this isn’t terrible, Brooke, but…haha, well, I guess it’s a bit like the coffee. It’s a start, but it can really use some improvement.”

“Oh ok…sure!” she said, nodding. Lucas wasn’t even sure she would know anything about what he was talking about, so he decided to start with the basics.

“So, for starters,” he said, “I’d like this to be typed up for me, ok? This kind of job might have flown at your internship, but it’s not really gonna fly here at Braden. We’re all prof—we, uhh…we have different standards here, you understand?”

“Right, got it — yes!” responded Brooke, nodding her head.

“Ok…and, so, yes…now one big thing I’m noticing here,” continued Lucas, “Is that you’re not blocking off enough time for meetings. Now, don’t beat yourself up about it or anything — I know it’s probably just because you’ve never been to one of our meetings before. They can be quite involved, you know…and quite long.”

Brooke just stood there, nodding and looking down at the piece of paper. Lucas wasn’t sure if all of this was “going in one ear and out the other,” so he just kept going. 

“And, well, you’ll understand more when you come with me to the meeting this afternoon,” he added.

Brooke’s eyes snapped up to his. 

“I get to come to one of the floor meetings!?” she asked excitedly. 

“Yes,” sighed Lucas, “As my note-taker. You won’t be…saying anything in the meeting, alright? But you’ll be there to jot down important things, important details that I might not remember, that kind of stuff. Think you’re up for that?” 

“Of course, yes!” she answered enthusiastically. 

“Right! So…uh, ok,” said Lucas, looking her up and down. There was plenty more to cover about what more Brooke could improve on in the itinerary, but Lucas had been suddenly seized by a desire to measure her. He didn’t, however, want to give into this urge too easily or quickly, and so he searched around in his mind for something else to stall with. 

“So, haha, how were you doing on that crossword over there?” he asked, realizing how odd the question sounded as soon as he had spoken it. 

“The cr-?…oh! Oh yeah!” exclaimed Brooke, understanding him after a moment’s puzzlement, “I…it’s getting better.”

“Oh yeah?” asked Lucas casually, standing up and going over to the crossword. A second or two later, he picked it up, studying it. He was stalling, he knew…but he also genuinely found himself wondering how sharp she was, with that 103 Wechsler score. He saw that she had correctly answered the “7th sphere” with “Saturn," and “cat killer” with “curiosity,” but that she hadn’t appeared to have figured out that “lead Italian fascist” was “Mussolini,” or that “mc2” was “energy.” She had also misspelled the answer to “prodigy musician” as “Mosart.”

‘Geez,’ thought Lucas happily, ‘This crossword is easy.’

“I know I’m still improving, haha,” came Brooke’s eager voice, “But I’m enjoying the practice!”

“I can see that,” replied Lucas, looking up from the puzzle and slightly down at her. Those eyes…still green…it was too weird. Lucas felt his pants seeming to tighten once more. 

“Where’s, uh…where do you get your puzzles from?” he asked, in a last bid to distract himself. 

“This one’s from a USA Today paper,” answered Brooke proudly. “I was doing easier ones before, but they’re too easy for me now!”

“Exxxxcellent!” intoned Lucas. “Well alright then — haha so…the moment you’ve been waiting for Brooke…” He didn’t know why he was fueling her. He couldn’t seem to help himself.

“You’re gonna measure me?” she exclaimed, clapping her hands.

“Yep! You know, just for protocol and such,” he responded, going around to the far wall. “We’ll be doing this every morning at 8am sharp, right when the bots are programmed for your growth, which means…?”

“Which means…uh…oh! That I’m going to be ON TIME!” she laughed as she backed up against the wall. 

“There we go,” chuckled Lucas. “Now, take your shoes off…good…even though they’re flats they’ll change your height a little…ok, now stand up straight and tall…and let’s see here.”

Lucas approached Brooke and reached his hand up to guide the stadiometer arm gown to the top of Brooke’s head. This close to her, he saw her cheeks reddening, either in excitement or arousal or both, and her breasts began heaving slightly up and down — she inclined her head slightly towards him, smiling lustily at him. Lucas felt his cock, already semi-erect, lurch in his pants. She wasn’t even that pretty — why was he letting her have this effect on him!? Maybe it was just the proximity to her; as he stood next to her, adjusting the stadiometer arm, he could feel her heat. 

“Head straight, please,” he muttered. A couple seconds later he was examining the floor that Brooke was standing on, looking puzzled. 

“What’s going on?” asked Brooke.

“It’s just…huh, that’s interesting,” murmured Lucas, getting an odd feeling in the pit of his stomach, “I just was making sure there wasn’t, like…a hump in the floor or something.”

“No, it feels flat,” said Brooke. “Why?”

“Well,” came Lucas’s voice, strangely distant in his own ears, “It looks like you’re a little taller than you were before…you were 5’8 and a quarter in the lab, and now…you’re 5’8 and a half.”