It’s not like I’m clueless. You can’t do well in this business, after all, unless you’re highly perceptive. It’s not enough to just write a killer program. You have to be able to read people, and you have to take charge.

I know Lily’s upset, but she just doesn’t understand that this business means everything to me. It’s not just my money that’s at stake, it’s my reputation.

She should understand that.

You can’t know me without understanding that about me.

Honestly, it makes me a little angry.

And it’s not like I can go chase her down tonight, running out to the parking lot. After all, there’s code that has to be written, and she and Jerry are going to be at home sleeping while I’ll be doing all the real work.

It’s far too late in the project to call in some hired help. I’ve got plenty of good programmers for hire in my contacts list, guys who are essentially on call, and who can bang out damn good code in a short period of time. But they’re not familiar at all with what we’re doing here. I’d have to explain the whole thing to them, starting from Lily’s original hypothesis, and the three of us have come so far since then in our theory that it would take hours to explain everything to them.

I crack open another energy drink and keep my eyes on the code. I’ve got to keep my head clear.

But my cock twitches as my thoughts go back to Lily…

The night goes on, and I try not to think about her.

It’s not like she’s running away, right?

The coding is getting tricky, and now I have to incorporate Jerry and Lily’s code into mine.

Three o’clock rolls around and I hardly notice it. Four o’clock hits, and I feel a little tired, but not by too much.

I’m totally absorbed in the code.

I’m so close, but there’s something missing… The programming is getting more and more tedious now. The innovation already happened, and I just have to do the brick laying to get things up and running.

But I’m so damn close.

A light flashes in my peripheral vision. I look up for the first time in hours, my vision fuzzy from staring at the computer screen for so long, and I see that a janitor has arrived to start the morning cleaning before the workers come in.

“Hey,” he says gruffly, dragging a vacuum unenthusiastically behind him.

I nod at him and go back to coding.

About an hour later, the workers start to show up. I don’t know most of them, but I recognize Sheila.

Jerry arrives looking sleepy, and I nod at him. He sits there waiting for me to tell him what to do, since by now he’s hours behind on the project.

But there’s really not much for him to do. I’m so close to running the program, so close to hitting “compile.”

“Anything I can help with?” says Jerry, taking a sip from his coffee mug.

“Is Lily here yet?”

“I haven’t seen her.”

I go back to typing away.

“I’m hitting compile,” I suddenly say.

Jerry gets up excitedly and comes to stand behind me, anxious to see if the thing runs.

It compiles.

No errors.

“Nice,” says Jerry.

“Now we just have to feed it some data and see how the benchmark scores are.”

“I’m sure it’s going to do well,” says Jerry.

“It better,” I say.

Another hour goes by as Jerry helps me set up a test run. We’re using the same benchmark system that Simmons used. This will tell us whether my new updated algorithm is worse, as good, or better than the Simmons algorithm.

There’s still no sign of Lily, but I shrug it off.

“OK,” says Jerry. “Looks like we’re ready.”

We’ve got the program running on a remote server that I rent by the year. It’s a powerful set of computers that can really crunch data.

The algorithm isn’t something that can run well on a laptop, which is very underpowered.

“It’s running,” says Jerry, monitoring the process from his laptop.

I’m staring at my screen. My mental fingers are crossed.

I’m holding my breath.

My mind briefly flashes to Lily, and my cock stiffens again.

Even though I’m on no sleep, I’d fuck her hard and fast if she was here right now.

But she’s not.

I wonder what happened to her? She’s not one to miss running the algorithm for the first time. After all, it was her idea that led to this new development. I’m sure she’s anxious to see how well it works, since she seems to be so into programming.

“Shit,” says Jerry.

My attention snaps back to my computer screen.

The test isn’t over, but the preliminary benchmark scores are already coming in, and they’re not good.

They’re a little faster than my old algorithm, but they’re nothing compared to what Simmons has accomplished.

“Fuck,” I say.

“Maybe there’s just something that needs tweaking,” says Jerry meekly.

I shake my head. “I set up everything perfectly,” I say. “Fuck it, I’m going home.”

I leave Jerry looking worried and confused. But he doesn’t have nearly as much at stake on this as I do. After all, it’s my algorithm.

So this means that Simmons’s algorithm is still faster than mine, and everyone’s going to buy his. His will be the new enterprise business standard.

On the way home, my eyes are bleary, but I’m fine to drive.

Grabbing my phone, I give Lily a call, but she doesn’t pick up.

I don’t leave a voicemail.

Instead, I head home, but it’s always been hard for me to sleep when the sun’s up. I feel like I’m not being productive.

So instead of heading right to bed, I decide to do a lifting session.

My muscles ache with fatigue as I arrange the weights, getting ready. I do it still wearing my business clothes, so it’s time for me to change.

I switch quickly into a pair of gym shorts. I don’t bother putting on a shirt.

It’s not until I’m already wearing them that I smell it. More like I smell her.

These are the shorts I lent Lily, the first night that we fucked. I can smell her delicious scent coming up from my own shorts. It sends my cock rocketing out, swelling with blood.

I’ve got to push on through, though. I’ve got to do something strong.

I lay down on the bench press bench, arranging myself so that the bar is right above my eyes, right where it should be. I grip my hands around the cold textured steel and push, lifting the weight off the rack where it rests.

Fuck, I can’t believe the Simmons’s algorithm is better than mine.

But it just can’t be true. There’s just no fucking way. I know I’m better at algorithms than just about anyone. I’m a better coder.

There’s got to be some trick to this.

There’s got to be something strange going on.

Could Simmons possibly be manipulating his benchmark speed scores?

The weight feels heavier than usual because I’m on no sleep, and it threatens to crash down on my chest for a moment, but I push through it, using all my strength to do ten reps.

When I slam the bar back on the stand, panting from exertion, my cock is still hard and sticking straight up, making a tent in my gym shorts. My cock is straining against the thin fabric, the very spot where her sweet pussy was.

I can’t concentrate on lifting with images of her flashing in my mind… her breasts, her perfect curves, the feeling of her pressed against my soft body.

I pull my cock out of my shorts, letting the elastic waist band fall down to the thick base of my cock.

Gripping my cock in my fist, I slide my hand up and down my shaft.

I concentrate on what Lily looked like when I was entering her, making her face contort in ecstasy.