"Yes. No. I don't know." Davina slumped forward, rubbing her temples with her light brown fingers in an attempt to massage away the stress building up in her tense muscles. She felt embarrassed and off-kilter, unable to focus on even the simplest thing--every time she looked down at the layouts and proofs scattered across Ken's desk, her vision seemed to blur as if tears were pricking at the corners of her eyes. Ken could clearly tell she was a total mess, and it felt humiliating to sit there and stammer out a confused and incoherent response to his perfectly normal question of 'Do you want to talk about it?'; but Davina thought that if she poked at the emotional time bomb sitting in the middle of her brain, it was going to explode. She didn't want him caught in the blast.

But thankfully, Ken always knew just what to do. "I think you need to take a little brain break," he said, cupping her chin in one strong hand and fixing his bright blue eyes on her. "Just focus on me, Davina. Look at me, look right here at me and let everything else fade away for a moment so you can relax." Normally that would be all Davina needed to sluice away the tension of another late night at the office; she'd gotten used to turning to Ken and his guided meditation techniques whenever she started to run out of steam during these crunch time all-nighters. But tonight, the sensation of Ken's pale fingers against her warm skin only reminded her of Lori's hurtful, hateful words at lunchtime. They lodged in her brain like a fishbone, preventing her from finding that delightful state of calm that she normally achieved so easily.

Even so, he managed to bleed off enough stress to allow Davina to talk about what was bothering her. "I'm sorry," she said. "I know I'm a total basket case tonight. I'm just really ticked off about Lori. She decided to 'help me out' today by taking me out to lunch and repeating all the nasty rumors that are going around the office about you and I." A part of her felt guilty for even mentioning this to Ken--wasn't she really just doing the same thing to him that Lori had done to her by talking about this? But as she stared into his sparkling blue eyes, allowing the comfortable familiarity of his gaze to remind her of all the other times he helped her calm down when she was feeling overwhelmed, that tension slowly melted into warm, peaceful relaxation.

For his part, Ken didn't seem particularly bothered by the implications of Davina's words. "Uh oh," he said, a chuckle of amusement in his voice. "Is the rumor mill saying something about us?" A friendly smile tugged at the corners of his mouth, as though he knew exactly what she was going to say and thought of it as nothing more than a private joke. "Go on, spill the beans. Tell me what she said to you." His hand moved as he spoke, rotating her head in gentle circles that eased out more and more tension until Davina's deep brown eyes fluttered slightly in relaxation.

"She said, um..." Davina was surprised to find that for a moment, she couldn't quite recall her office acquaintance's words of this afternoon. They'd loomed so large in her head a few minutes ago, but now they faded into irrelevance next to the endless depths of Ken's sparkling blue eyes. She could feel the tension melting out of her neck muscles, allowing her head to move freely under Ken's gentle manipulation. He always worked such wonders. She was lucky to have a friend like him.

Friend. Right. "She said that everyone thinks we're lovers." Davina blushed, her tawny skin doing almost nothing to hide the flush of embarrassment in her cheeks.

Ken guffawed with laughter, and after a moment, Davina found herself giggling right along with him. "Well of course they do!" he said. "Any time a man and a woman spend more than five minutes alone together in this place, someone's saying that they're having an affair. It's like they've never even heard of a platonic relationship." Ken's laughter worked like a literal charm, banishing the anger and humiliation and anxiety Davina felt in a matter of instants. She couldn't bring herself to continue caring about what other people thought about their friendship, not when Ken thought their concerns were so clearly absurd. Another wave of tension washed out of her, leaving her slumping nearly boneless in her chair.

"I know," she chuckled delightedly, almost slurring her words in relief. "It's, it's like they think that everything a woman does just has to lead to sex or something." Her fingers began to move, slowly unbuttoning her blouse before tugging it over her shoulders and down her arms to drop it completely onto the floor. She understood why she hadn't done it before--normally she liked getting comfortable right away during their late night work sessions, but she probably had a subconscious fear that someone might see them and think that she had some kind of a sexual motivation for taking off her clothes. It was absurd, though. They were all alone, and the office door was locked. She could wear whatever she felt like. Ken wouldn't mind at all.

In fact, he even joined her. "I know just what you mean," he said, taking his hand away from Davina's chin to loosen his constricting tie and toss it onto the growing pile of clothing. "'Oh, you're naked in the presence of another human being! There can't possibly be anything innocent about that!'" They shared a chuckle. Davina and Ken worked in the nude all the time when they were alone together; what with the way the old building's climate control was almost constantly on the fritz, she understood completely the necessity of keeping cool. It wasn't like she was tempted to look at Ken's body or anything, not when his eyes kept her so wonderfully centered on what she needed to think about.

That wasn't to say Ken was unattractive. On the contrary, he had a very nice body underneath his suit, with a lean, taut stomach and well-muscled limbs that showed off his commitment to exercise. And when he stepped out of his boxer shorts, it was to reveal a thick, girthy cock that waggled impressively every time he moved. It was already getting hard, but Davina didn't mind that. She knew that sometimes guys couldn't always control their erections. It didn't mean they were secretly lovers or anything.

The more she thought about it, the more Davina wondered why she'd let Lori get under her skin like that at all. Of course she knew that she and Ken shared a strictly platonic relationship. They'd hashed all that out years ago, back when she was still his intern and he'd only just begun helping her get rid of stress with his guided meditation techniques. It was an intimate friendship, certainly; she thought nothing of reaching over and giving him a caress on the shoulder or a kiss on the lips, and she knew he felt the same way. But only the most narrow-minded prude would call those things sexual. They were gestures of friendship, that was all.

She gave Ken one of those appreciative kisses right now, putting her hand on the back of his neck and drawing him close for a long, tender embrace. She pulled back just long enough to whisper, "Thank you," before returning her mouth to his and sliding her tongue between his lips in a slow, sensuous, entirely platonic demonstration of her sincere gratitude. Her hands roamed over his chest, massaging away the tension that she knew he must be feeling after such a long evening of hard work and emotional labor.

"For what?" he said at last, when she finally let him come up for air. He was breathing hard, and she knew he must be every bit as exhausted from the strenuous schedule as she was. She stood up and took his hand, leading him over to the wide couch at the back of his office where they both rested during these all-night sessions. It was big enough to accommodate both of them, she knew, as long as she didn't mind getting close to him. And frankly, what kind of friends avoided touching each other?

Davina smiled. "For helping me find my peace of mind again," she said, sitting down next to him and kissing her way appreciatively down his chest. She didn't know what she would have done without the calming influence of Ken's meditation techniques; no matter how stressed she got, no matter how confused and disoriented her mind became, she could always close her eyes and focus on the icy intensity of his sparkling gaze, and everything started to make sense to her again. Even now, whenever her mind tried to wander back to the question of whether there was anything to Lori's insinuations of impropriety, thoughts of Ken's stare and his smooth, gentle voice helped brush her worries away.

"We're just good friends," Ken said soothingly to her, guiding her head down to his lap so that she could rest her tired brain for a little while. "That's all it is." Davina's mouth opened wide to speak, but somehow the words came out inexplicably muffled. Perhaps she was feeling a little sleepy--she usually mumbled when she got drowsy like this during her late-night sessions with Ken. Davina decided to give up on talking for a bit and simply nodded in agreement instead. Then she nodded again. Then her head simply began to move up and down automatically for a while.

Davina didn't doubt that if Lori walked in on them right now, she'd doubtless find something untoward about the position the two of them wound up in. Davina's head was resting in Ken's lap, after all, and it was practically a cinch that a stranger might see that as somehow compromising. But Davina had gone over this with Ken dozens of times over the years. A quick rest did both of them good, and with a catnap simply out of the question this late at night, they needed to find other ways to relax. Davina let him empty the stress from her brain, and she emptied... she emptied... she emptied out. That was it. She emptied out and let go. Davina tried to smile in relief, but her mouth was stuck in a wide, perfect 'O'.

It had taken him a long time to go along with it, but she finally convinced him. By now, he believed in the idea of these innocent stress-relief cuddles so much that Davina could hear him reciting the reasoning behind it inside her head. That seemed... odd, for a moment, but then Davina filled up her mouth with another long, slow, lazy nod and pictured his bright blue eyes gazing into her, and the befuddled feeling went away. She was always so much better at thinking straight when she had Ken's meditation techniques helping her out. Nothing helped calm her down and get in touch with her feelings quite like his soothing... um... relaxing... um....

A sudden wave of pleasure dissipated the thought before it could finish. Davina didn't know where it came from, any more than she knew exactly where her hands were right now or what they were doing. It didn't matter anyway; Ken understood that just as he couldn't always control his erections when they were alone together, Davina couldn't always stop her pussy from getting slick and messy with sexual arousal when they cuddled together in the spirit of innocent friendship. It, it didn't mean she was a slut, or a whore, or Ken's dripping little office fucktoy or anything. It just meant that she was aroused. Lots of people got turned on like that. Probably every woman in the office got at least a little bit wet by the end of the day, and it didn't mean they were lying there with a man's cock in their mouth and two fingers thrusting in and out of their cunt. Why couldn't Lori and the other's see that?

Davina began to moan sleepily, grunting incoherently as she tried to explain everything she was thinking to Ken and found once again that her mouth was too full to speak. She knew that she'd simply gotten tired again, that once they finished their little brain-break she'd be able to regain her concentration again and get back to the important business she'd stayed late to get through, but somehow her mind wasn't quite in the right place yet. She wasn't comfortable enough. She didn't have the right... fuck, the right position to make her happy. She hated to ask Ken for a favor, especially when he was doubtless very happy exactly where he was, but he was her best friend. He would be bound to understand.

Davina pulled up off the shaft in her mouth and looked right into her good friend's bright, beaming eyes. "Please fuck me," she whimpered shyly. She didn't think about the words that had escaped her lips, only that they would make perfect sense to Ken in this particular context.

Thankfully, Ken understood her predicament. He didn't make her ask twice before he pulled her upright, lifting her by the hips and manhandling her into his lap. Davina let out a low, shuddery groan of pure ecstasy as she felt her body finally relax into perfect peace and pleasure. Her eyelids fluttered in helpless bliss, and her body seemed to go limp in his powerful grasp as he raised and lowered her in time with the motions of his hips. Even with all that, though, Davina had no trouble finding the glittering blue depths of his stare and centering her thoughts on only that.

It was so good to sink into that stare and allow it to relax her. So good to push out all the doubts and questions that Lori's earlier conversation had raised. Davina didn't need to think about what her soon-to-be-former friend had said to her; she could just freeze her out and focus her energies on the people who truly made her happy in life, the way she had so many times before. She didn't need to worry about the  office rumors, not when she had good friends like Ken. Ken was her best friend, Ken would always be her best friend, and Ken's wisdom always relaxed her and comforted her whenever she began to get confused about things. Ken was--was--

Davina's thoughts were finally drowned out in the rush of a climax that she couldn't consciously recognize, a climax that left her shaking and shuddering and quivering helplessly in Ken's arms. She felt him straining inside her, gushing spurt after spurt of thick, pearly semen into her cunt to drip slowly out onto his balls as he held her and whispered words that passed right through her drowsy mind without leaving an impression on her consciousness. She didn't need to worry about what he was saying. She could trust Ken to tell her what to think and what to believe. He was... he was her friend.

Davina nodded. She didn't know what she was agreeing with, only that it wasn't sexual at all. Her mind could construct the rationale later. For now, Davina simply got down on her knees and began to platonically clean Ken's balls with her tongue.

THE END