Tsuru (Temporarily) Replaces Xico At Work

The term 'appearance of impropriety' is one of critical importance and often ignored. It amounts to this: even if you're being honest, you must also make an effort to present yourself as honest. This is due to the way in which society so often puts greater importance on how things appear than how they actually are; which in turn flows from the limitations of every individual in terms of what information they have access to. If a person who is being honest behaves in a way that makes it appear as if they're dishonest, then it forces others to expend time and effort to confirm their honesty - and wasting others' time, in this fast-paced world of ours, is the greatest crime at all.

That is the reason I was playing Bouncy Squid on my phone rather than working, and the only reason. Xico had yet to come in, so my office door was open and my computer powered down. Anyone who glanced in would see very clearly that I was not taking advantage of her absence to embezzle funds from the company, and could have proudly nodded to themselves at what a good boy I was being.

Tsuru was the one who finally popped in to speak with me - I initially assumed to congratulate me on my good behavior. "Xico isn't going to be here today," she said, kicking the door shut behind her with an absent hook of her foot, one hand locking the door. "You really think you'll get a compliment for playing Bouncy Squid on your phone instead of working?" She asked, with a grin on her lips.

I chose to ignore the insult to my (entirely rational, to be frank) internal thought process. Just another example of the way that appearance mattered more than reality. Tsuru snorted at that thought. "Why isn't Xico coming in?"

"She didn't follow orders in a field operation; she's being suspended for two weeks. Reports are being submitted to relevant government agencies. Given the specifics, it's unlikely they'll call for anything more than a slap on her wrist and for us to amend our processes in circumstances involving personal connections between team members and potential victims."

I just blinked at Tsuru, uncomprehending. "Sorry?"

"Xico was one of the scouts for finding her mother, since she's our best telepath; unfortunately, rather than return with information, she started a fight and tore her way through Arcadia with her mother in tow. It all worked out, but disobedience in the field, particularly on foreign soil... anyway, enough of that depressing stuff!" She smacked the table, making me jolt in surprise. "You need to work. And then..." she leaned in towards me, popping the top couple buttons on her shirt to show cleavage, very clearly having managed to figure out the effect such clothing choices had as she slid around to rest on the corner of the desk. "I do have a girlfriend," she whispered in my ear. "But, once you're done with work... we can do that naughty little fantasy of yours."

My cock immediately tented in my pants, despite the fact that I had no idea which particular fantasy she was speaking of. She giggled at that.

"The blowjob at work..." She said it with a husky tone. "Me under your desk..." She gave me a wink. "You can even tell Mira that I blew you on her behalf, if you think it'll help you fuck her brains out more."

"I should finish work first," I told her, and she leaned back with a nod, stretching in a way clearly intended to show off her breasts. I swallowed at the sight of them, shifting beneath her ivory white suit, her pale, milk-colored cleavage just visible and incredibly tempting.

"I know," she said, hopping to her feet. "You're good for an ego boost, that may be part of why Xico likes you so much," she added, with a grin as she hit the power button to my computer. "Good thing I know your work will be done within the hour, huh?"

I just swallowed and turned my attention to my booting up computer.

* * *

Xico sat across from her father again, staring through the bulletproof glass at him. He held the phone to his ear, and was clearly processing what she'd just told him - which amounted to what had happened yesterday. "I'm sorry to hear that," he said, at last. "That's the problem with 'superheroes.' They tend to think in these sorts of straight lines. You were acting to protect your mother. Thank you for that."

Xico couldn't help but feel her lips tug up at the edges thanks to the praise from her father. "She went... back to Chandrath... already."

Her father let out a little laugh. "How out of character for her," he said, a sardonic note to his voice. "That's the sort of person your mother is - you wouldn't expect an angel to want to spend too much time dancing with us mortals down here. All our muck just stains her. And, of course, she did get kidnapped by this... magic fairy. Hardly recommends Earth to her."

"There hasn't... been..." Xico trailed off. "We think it was... opportunity... attack."

"Maybe. But your mother is... sensitive. You get that from her."

"She abandoned me... and you... again..." Xico said, letting out the feelings she'd been bottling up for... however long. "Why do you... have to... defend her?"

There was a pause, her father looking solemn as he considered his answer. She picked up bits and pieces as he thought his way through the question, but it was so much a self-referential abstract thing grounded in his own experience, she didn't really know what he was going to say until he did. "Because I love her. When you love someone, truly, deeply love them - their flaws become beautiful, too. I don't like your mother just because she's gregarious, friendly, and outgoing - she's also a completely unreliable flake, and I love that too."

Xico knew he meant every word. She looked down for a moment, her thoughts going to Roger. He was the closest thing to a boyfriend she'd ever had. She wondered what he was doing.

* * *

"Done," I said, hitting Ctrl+S the hardest I'd ever pressed those two keys together. I turned my attention to the beautiful woman, currently seated on the edge of the desk, her top few buttons still undone, albino-pale skin revealing full, voluptuous breasts and the hint of a bra.

"Oh, you're finished? Great, you can go on home," she said, seeming completely serious. She frowned at the thought. "I am serious. Come on," she said, letting out a laugh. "You didn't really think I was going to give you a blowjob, did you? We have telepaths here. Deep down, you must have known-snrk ahahah, I'm sorry," she said, quickly waving her hand as she broke into laughter.

"Just a joke, I'm a woman of my word," she said, slipping down in between my legs, going under my desk. My cock was pretty much raging hard in my pants, and the thought came to mind that there was no chance Xico wouldn't pick up on this. Tsuru just gave me a wink. "I bet you could use this to get a little risky fun with her, too," she said, wrapping her lips around my cockhead without further ado.

It felt amazing. The soft sensation of her lips wrapped around my cock, the positioning - her under my desk, like some sexy secretary here to suck off her boss - the flicking of her eager tongue against my slit, dragging out any hint of precum as she suckled lovingly on the tip. Her hands weren't on me - rather, they went to her top, undoing the buttons on her shirt, revealing inch after inch of pale cleavage, showing and suggesting so much beneath her white lace bra. Her eyes were locked on mine, a smile visible in them as she remained in that position, teasing and tempting.

She shucked off her jacket, then, peeling away her top as well, leaving her wearing nothing but a white bra, which was somehow sexier than if she'd been topless, my eyes naturally drawn to the curve of her breasts while her own brilliantly blood red eyes stared directly up at me, an intense focus as she began to slide down my cock in a single smooth movement, my entire length disappearing into her throat.

I felt as she started to swallow, her fingers coming up now to gently fondle my balls, her other hand brushing along my stomach, feeling my belly button, my abs, groping my pecs as she worked over my dick like that, just holding herself down for an unbelievable period of time. Her tongue was a wild thing in her mouth, flashing around, licking, and soon enough she was twisting her head from side to side, her silky white hair flashing from side to side as she sucked. Then she peeled back again, a wet pop escaping her mouth as she reached the very tip and pulled her mouth off.

"Ah... boss..." she said, putting this husky note to her voice as she said it. "I'm only sucking your dick so I can keep my job..." I could see her trying to resist the urge to giggle at that line, and it ruined whatever effect she was going for with it. "If somebody comes, will you put my clothes back on? Since you have super speed, it should be easy for you. Sir."

"Is somebody comi-nn," I groaned as she just slurped my entire dick into her mouth, her throat wrapped around my dick in a heartbeat, her nose pressing into my pubes. It felt unbelievably good, my hips inadvertently bucking against her face as she twisted and swiveled and stared up at me, this look in her eye that dared and challenged and suggested that, just maybe, somebody was coming, and she was going to have my dick in her mouth when they knocked on the door.

I wasn't normally the type to respond to that kind of threat or tease or possibility, but somehow, right then, my brain didn't decide to remove her mouth from my cock and hurriedly zip up - instead, I grabbed a tangle of her long, white hair, and just started fucking her face. She hummed pleasantly around my cock, eyebrows wiggling suggestively up at me, as if this was the funnest thing ever for her. I had learned that women basically never minded when you did that, as long as you didn't do anything really crazy, so I just enjoyed myself, the wet feeling of her throat around my cock, the urge to come slowly rising, and rising, until at last it reached its apex. At that point, I just held her down in my groin, leaning forward over her as I came.

When I was completely spent, I let her off, and she popped off happily, wiping her mouth idly as she smiled up at me. "Oh, Sir. I hope that my blowjob was good enough for me to get and keep my job. I'd hate to be fired because, I didn't-" she was obviously struggling to keep a ridiculous smile off her lips, "-I didn't, blow a hot guy ahahaha. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm trying to do the sexy secretary thing but it sounds so ridiculous. Do women really do that in your world? Or men?"

"Uh... it's a serious problem," I said.

"Ladies don't know how good they got it," she said, with a shake of her head and a lopsided grin as she collected her shirt, starting to get herself dressed again. She paused for a moment, her fingers buttoning it up as she squinted down at my still-hard cock. She bit her lip, glanced at the door, then shook her head at whatever thought she was having. "It was that we could fuck in here, but that'd definitely make me look way more of a mess," she explained, as she grabbed her jacket and pulled it back on. "So, I got enough of you to- zip up, c'mon," she added, when she realized I hadn't started doing that, and I immediately followed her suggestion, getting my dick put away. She idly pulled out a comb from her pocket, and I wondered - "Yes, I have it because I figured my hair'd be a mess."

I waited for her to finish combing her hair. "You got enough of me to...?" I asked, wondering if she was referring to the sex just now.

She chuckled. "Hey, I didn't get to come, you owe me one," she said. "I'm not Mira. No, I mean that I know you're about to start looking at funny videos or pictures of puppy. Which one?" She asked, sliding around behind me, resting her elbows on the back of my chair as she peeked over my shoulder at the computer screen.

"I actually started playing this game, Mars Colony-"

"Oh Goooood no, don't," she interrupted, rolling her eyes so hard it looked like it hurt. "Fucking Mira has been playing that game lately, she actually started telling me all about the oxygen cycle before I convinced her to eat me out. Do something fun, c'mon. I'm not some teeny-bopper with a crush, I cannot watch you play the boring sim game."

"I guess that's fair enough. You're stuck here too." I hadn't ever really thought of Xico as being stuck in the room with me, but I supposed she was...

I clicked on a video series of a woman who pretended to be various animals explaining their thought processes and behaviors to humans in a comical fashion, while the humans acted horrified. The one about dolphins was the first one. Went something like this:

DOLPHIN: Yeah, so when I see a human drowning, sometimes I'll help heft them up so they don't, even carrying them back to shore, just common decency. You guys are pretty light since I weigh like 400 pounds.HUMAN: That sounds genuinely wholesome, you know, so many animals are really-DOLPHIN: Wait, hang on there's a hot dude, I gotta go kill his children and then have sex with him.HUMAN: Oh there it is.DOLPHIN: There what is?HUMAN: I don't think you should kill his children before having sex with him.DOLPHIN: Uhh, I have to kill his children, or he'll be raising somebody else's kids instead of mine. I know they're not mine since I've never seen this dude before.HUMAN: Well, you shouldn't kill children, though.DOLPHIN: I think I already explained the benefit to killing his children. What do you not get? They aren't my kids.HUMAN: Okay, let me try another tack. What if he doesn't want to have sex with you, after you kill his children?DOLPHIN: I don't understand the question.HUMAN: I mean, he might not have sex with you.DOLPHIN: He'll have to swim pretty fast, I've got some buddies to help me beat him up until he stops swimming away, then have sex with him. He'll nut in like ten seconds, so it won't take long.HUMAN: No, see, that's rape, and it's bad.DOLPHIN: Why?HUMAN: It just is. If he wanted you to have sex with him, then he wouldn't run away.DOLPHIN: I got it. Me and my buddies could do some sexy dances to show off our hot bodies.HUMAN: There you go-DOLPHIN: Then if that doesn't work, we could beat him up and have sex with him.HUMAN: No.

Tsuru was giggling at the video. I laughed a bit at delivery but the sex angle was weird to me - I'd somehow assumed that it was specifically humans in this universe that had reversed sexual morality.

"No," Tsuru said, "I picked Mira's brain about this earlier because of you, all mammals have the females initiate sexual activity. Even in spotted hyenas, where unlike most mammals, the females are hyper-androgenized and bigger than the males, the females are still the ones who do the approaching."

"How does that work?" I asked. "It really seems like it should be the other way around."

Tsuru shrugged. "Ask Mira. Put on another video from this chick," she added, pointing at the computer screen. I obeyed her command.

* * *

Xico's thiasyar manipulated the plastic guitar with ease, as she sat on the couch. On screen, various arrows were being displayed. Lope was doing her level best to keep up with her, standing with her plastic guitar, but human fingers didn't have reaction times as good as thiasyar, so she was better at the timing and clicking just by sheer nature. Lope was singing along to the song. "So turn that frown, upside down, because I'm gonna love you, until you drown..."

Her thoughts weren't really on the details of the screen or the song, though. They were on her conversation with her father. Her feelings for Roger. If she thought about it objectively... he had a lot of flaws. He was really cynical. He was sexually promiscuous. He was lazy. He had superpowers but hadn't decided to become a superhero, despite literally working at a company... but when she thought about it, none of those things really bothered her. If anything, they were fun. Funny. His cynicism was a cute affect; his promiscuity was fun and pleasant (that thought made her blush); his lack of desire to work made her feel calm around him, like she didn't have to try too hard herself, or at least, not as hard as she might have; him not being a superhero just 'fit' him so well it was almost impossible to think of a flaw.

"...am I in love with Roger?" Xico asked.

The words were quiet enough that it might have been missed, particularly during the blaring extro to the song, but Lope clearly heard them. Her emotions were more disbelief than anything else. "Uhh. Obviously? I thought you knew? Sheesh, for somebody able to read everybody else's mind, looks like you're not too good at reading your own." Lope flopped down on the couch next to her, wanting to offer support. "Anyway, a guy like that, you know, it's like trying to tie down the rising sun," she said, with her finger waving through the air, as she gave some vague and totally meaningless advice that even she knew was pointless and based on nothing.

"I can... read your mind..." Xico pointed out.

Lope laughed. "I dunno, man. You've got a good thing going. He takes you out on dates, right? I mean, hell, just getting taken out by a dude rather than being the one who gets taken out, he's gotta like you a lot, right?"

"...maybe." Xico knew that Roger had reasons to be the one to do the asking out and date planning and all the rest, that didn't have anything to do with her.

"Definitely," Lope corrected, giving Xico a boop on the nose with one finger. "Lots of guys don't realize how they feel about a girl until some dude points out that they're practically crawling over broken glass for her. And I've never really seen Roger hang out with the guys."

"He went... clubbing... with Alexios... and Hank, and Jacy."

"You should've told me," Lope said, jolting up. "Fuck, that's a good foursome. Fivesome with me," she added, with a wink. "Man... who's hottest, you think? You've got the exotic with Alexios, hunk with Hank, slender and girly with Jacy, and that swimmer physique with Roger." She licked her lips, her thoughts already completely wandering away from Xico's issues, but Xico supposed she couldn't really help anyway.

They were her feelings. She had to be the one to decipher them.

"Hey, does your telepathy let you see through other people's eyes?" Lope was imagining some locker room or shower scene that had definitely never happened, featuring all four of the attractive single men at Star Heroic.

"No... and it would be wrong... to do what you're thinking."

"It was just a thought!" Lope protested. "Gah. You need to get laid. We should go pick you up some other guy."

"Wha- but you just said I loved Roger."

"Yeah? That's that and this is this. Besides, he can't complain, he's fucking half the single ladies at Star Heroic by this point."

Probably more than that... "I don't... I'm not good... at seducing guys..." Maybe that was it. She was so starved for attention she latched onto the first man to show interest in her.

"Come on... some guy's gonna want it. Let's get one of those casual sex apps on your phone, I'll help you make a profile."

"I have... tentacles..."

"Some dude's gonna be into that, don't worry. It's like how Alexios's weird teeth can be a turn off or a turn the fuck on," Lope explained. "Gimme your phone."

"I don't... want to have casual sex..."

"Alright, fine. We've tried nothing and it didn't work." She flopped backwards, splaying her arms and legs in an exaggerated fashion. "You could talk to him, I guess." Xico could tell that Lope thought that was a bad idea. It probably was.

* * *

I'd gotten two more work blowjobs from Tsuru - during the last one, she even suggested that I could watch some porn while getting sucked off. It was honestly an incredible experience, and part of me regretted not ever doing it with Xico. If I got away with it for however long she was suspended, she could probably rest assured that nobody was going to interrupt us in the future...

I arrived home thinking all that - and Xico was waiting at the door, nervously wringing her hands. Her tentacles curled up in the way they did when she was nervous. "Hi," she said.

"Uh, hi." I opened the door. "Do you want to come in?"

She nodded, floating after me as she came inside. Since she looked so serious and earnest, I felt bad about having gotten three during-the-workday blowjobs from Tsuru. Xico flushed at that thought. "It's... okay... I hope you... enjoyed them..." she said, idly flicking the door closed behind her with her telekinesis. She played with her fingers further, gulping audibly as she looked at me.

"Tsuru said you were just temporarily suspended - is it more serious than that?"

She let out a small laugh, shook her head. "No..." she bit her lip, looked about ready to say something, then stopped. She opened her mouth again. "Do you want to... igoss again?"

"It felt really good last time," I admitted, my cock pretty instantly hard to the thought.

She flushed with color, looking down suddenly. "Not for... sex..." I just frowned in confusion. "For... for talking..."

"Um... okay," I said, and instantly her consciousness collided with mine, nestling together to the point it could hardly be extricated. I felt a certainty that my affection for me was something deeper than just sex or abstract admiration, that I had fallen deeply in love, that I couldn't manage to express that with words because it was so hard to just speak them out loud, I felt my anxiety spike as those thoughts fed across the connection, and I felt the jolt as the connection was suddenly ended. I swallowed, having to take a moment to mentally recover.

Xico loved me.