Burner Phones

Everyone got to work by 9:00 a.m. that morning, but the office was unusually quiet. Normally, people would be in and out of the pantry getting coffee, talking about what they did over the weekend, lamenting how bad N.C. State football sucks this year, and other water cooler type stuff. But today, it was just the sound of fingers typing on keyboards, the printer humming occasionally, and a few business phone calls.

Office doors remained open for the most part, but there wasn't a lot of eye contact going on, and any eye contact between males and females didn't last more than a nanosecond. We were all anxiously awaiting a resolution to the, uh, thing.

Finally, the email dropped at 9:45 a.m.

Topic: Staff Meeting

Date: Monday, October 13, 2025

Time: 5:00 p.m. ET

Location: Conference Room

"What the fuck, Emma!" shouted Matt, lightening the mood. We all needed that.

Matt walked over to Albert's office and said, "Hey, man."

"Hey," replied Albert, grateful for some interaction.

"Can I ask you something personal?" Matt began, not waiting for Albert to answer. "Did you and Julie have sex this weekend?"

Albert, dumbfounded, responded, "Yeah, how did you know?"

Matt explained, "Well, I was thinking about that thing on Friday, and I got really juiced, and according to Val I gave her some kind of look, and the next thing I know we're doing it on the couch. I mean, we haven't fucked like that in ages."

Meanwhile, Kelly saw Grace go into Priya's office, so she decided to follow.

Kelly bounced in the door and asked, "What are you guys talking about?" in a frisky voice.

"Grace was telling me how she got laid last night," responded Priya, with a smirk.

"Do tell!" exhorted Kelly.

"Well as I was saying," said Grace, bubbling with excitement, "with that thing on Friday and all of our prior talk about affairs and cheating..."

"You didn't!" shouted Kelly, but not with condemnation. Her eyes lit up like a puppy whose master was about to administer a tasty treat.

Grace continued, "NoNoNo but Jeff I and were in bed and I just got the urge to pull out his cock and start sucking it..."

"Jesus!" Kelly uttered, as the Grace train rambled on.

"Jeff was pretty shocked because I don't usually give him oral because I suck at it oops no pun intended but I just wanted it and he got really hard really fast and I climbed on top and mounted him and grinded my clit into him and I came in like two minutes and then he flipped me onto my back and pounded his cock into me and I came like two more times before he finished inside me and then he passed out on top of me with his cock still inside my pussy and then I started grinding my clit into him again while he slept on top of me and I started bucking my hips and came again and then I passed out too," Grace babbled eagerly, seemingly without taking a breath.

"Did you get all that?" Priya asked Kelly, with a grin.

"I think I got the gist," Kelly deadpanned.

"Did Jeff say anything this morning?" asked Priya.

"Well," responded Grace, her heartbeat having returned to something resembling a normal resting rate, "he asked what got into me last night. I told him that a friend gave me a trashy romance novel to read and that it kind of made me horny. He said to ask my friend if there's more where that came from. I just laughed it off."

I joined the boys in Albert's office and was met immediately with, "You got some too, didn't you?"

"Jesus, I guess I wasn't the only one," I responded with a chuckle, as the three of us bumped fists.

"How about you, Kelly?" asked Grace. "You're kind of glowing today."

"Yeah!" agreed Priya, "I thought there was something different about her today, but I couldn't put my finger on it."

"Stop it, you guys. I am NOT glowing," Kelly protested, "but Ryan and I did fuck three times this weekend." Kelly felt herself blushing and used her hands to cover her face.

"Oh my!" exclaimed Grace. "Oh my!" she repeated, her heart rate back on the rise.

"Well?" asked Kelly, looking directly at Priya.

"Well what?" Priya responded, knowing exactly what.

"Out with it," commanded Grace.

"Look, Arjun and I haven't had sex in years and we didn't this past weekend either," started Priya, to disappointed looks on her girlfriends' faces, "but let's just say that I spent a lot of time in the bathroom the past couple of days with a little, [air quotes], stomach bug."

Kelly lit up. "How many times did you make yourself cum???" she asked excitedly.

"I lost count," swooned Priya.

"Were you thinking about Matt???" prodded Grace.

Priya's face turned expressionless.

"David???" Grace followed up.

No response.

"Jack! I bet it was Jack," said Kelly.

"I bet he has a big cock!" blurted out Grace, who immediately covered her mouth in shame as Kelly and Priya burst out laughing.

Things went on like this for a short while, and then everyone gradually got back to work, or tried to at least, realizing that 5:00 p.m. was a long way away.

Emma and Jack went to get an early lunch at this coffee/brunch place downtown called The Optimist. Maybe they were hoping for some good karma.

"What are you thinking?" asked Jack.

"I think we're dead...I mean it's dead," replied Emma, a bit dejected. "After we girls went out that night, I was convinced it was going to happen, but Friday's meeting was pretty discouraging."

"Cheer up, Babe. I think there's still a chance," Jack responded, with his usual sunny disposition. "I didn't join in, but I heard some laughing and chatter going on before we left."

"Really?" said Emma, her mood brightening a bit. "That's good. I was holed up in my office all morning practicing what I want to say this afternoon."

"Well, we'll find out soon enough, won't we?" finished Jack, as they cleared their table and headed back to the office.

* * * * *

It had been a long afternoon. It was impossible to concentrate. Time practically stood still. At 4:45 p.m., I just sat there tapping my fingers nervously on my desk. "Oh hell, I'll just go now and wait in there," I said to myself.

When I walked in, to my surprise nearly everyone was already there. Emma and Jack sat at the head of the conference table. Priya and Grace had taken chairs on Emma's side of the table, while Albert and Matt sat on Jack's side. Everyone was looking down at their phones, pretending to be doing something. I grabbed the seat next to Albert and noticed that, either consciously or subconsciously, everyone except Emma and Jack was physically as far away from the opposite sex as possible or at least had a barrier in between. Soon after, Kelly walked in and took the last chair.

"Well, since everyone is here already, we'll go ahead and start," said Emma.

Emma cleared her throat and began reciting her monologue, "To reiterate what was said on Friday, Jack and I cherish all of you as the closest of friends, and we would love for all of us to take our friendship to another level, a level that's a little bit dangerous and, let's be honest, more than a little bit naughty."

Emma seemed much more like her normal self today, clear, cool, and collected, even if her speech sounded rehearsed.

She continued, "Whatever we ultimately decide, we will decide as a group, no one voice more important than..."

"So how would this work exactly?" interrupted Matt.

"Yeah, I'd like to know the specifics," added Grace.

Albert and I looked at each other. We had thought Grace to be the most straitlaced out of all the women.

Knocked off course, Emma stumbled a bit. "Well, um, I think it's really exciting, and, um, I think everyone will really have fun with it," she sputtered, but then started to hit her stride.

"Here's what Jack and I have in mind.

"Each man will be randomly matched with one of us women.

"The conference is three days, and on the last day they're throwing a big cocktail dinner.

"Each of us will have our own hotel room, and after dinner, we'll find out who we're matched with, and then we go back to our rooms and, you know, have some dessert," explained Emma, with a shrug and an embarrassed smile at the end.

"Oh, just one to one," said Priya, sounding a bit relieved.

Albert and I looked at each other again, each of us thinking, "Wow, Priya too?"

"Oh, yeah, yeah," said Jack, breaking in. "We're all new at this, so we thought we'd better start slow, if there is such a thing. It's not going to be some big drunken orgy."

"In that case, I'm out," stated Matt, flatly. Matt didn't look like he was joking. He sat there stone-faced for at least ten seconds until he couldn't hold it in any longer. When he started cracking up, the rest of us just lost it. Everyone was howling for at least a minute, wiping away tears as we regained control of ourselves.

"Seriously guys," said Matt, "I thought about this a lot over the weekend as I'm sure you all did, and it made me feel, I dunno, young and virile again, and I'm kind of jacked to see where that leads. So I'm in."

"Does anybody else have any questions about the plan?" asked Emma.

Albert raised his hand. "I don't have a question," he began, "but I just want to say to you ladies that I think that you all are beautiful, highly intelligent women and wonderful people, and I would love the chance to be with any of you."

"Aww, thanks Albert. That's so sweet," said the ladies, with surprised smiles.

I was impressed. Albert could be kind of reserved sometimes, but obviously he has hormones like everyone else.

Priya went next: "First of all, I want to say to Albert and the rest of you gentlemen that for me the feeling is certainly mutual. What I'm about to say, the girls already know, but I'm going to share it with you too.

"I love my husband but have never been IN love with him or with anyone else for that matter. The meeting on Friday awakened feelings inside me that I never thought I had, or maybe never allowed myself to have.

"I'm not going chase any of you, so don't worry about that, but I'm an older woman now, and for the rest of my life I want to put my desires first for once and experience what I've been missing...what I've denied myself."

Priya choked up a bit at the end, and Grace put her arm around her.

I was thinking to myself, "Whoa, this is turning out to be kind of heavy," when Priya suddenly raised a fist and exclaimed, "So I'm in too! Enthusiastically!" as we all smiled.

Emma had scheduled the meeting to start at around the normal departure time for everyone because she had anticipated a quick defeat. But now she sensed momentum in the other direction and was eager to capitalize on it.

"And remember, we stand united whatever is decided. If any one of us doesn't want to do it, then end of story. Of course we know that everyone has reservations. How can you not? No one wants to do something that they might regret later," she finessed, trying to sell it without looking like she was trying to sell it.

"But you know what? I think the biggest regrets in life tend not to be mistakes made but rather opportunities missed, and I don't want to miss this one, with my best friends," she concluded, sounding almost philosophical (and persuasive too, as Emma usually does.)

Emma waited several moments for other questions or comments, but none came, so she called for a tally.

Kelly then piped up, "Should we do secret ballots or something?"

With the plan now a real possibility and maybe even a probability, Emma took no chances. Knowing that a little public persuasion could potentially sway any holdouts, she politely dismissed Kelly's suggestion, "Oh, we don't need to do that. We're all close friends here. Everyone will have complete respect for each other's decision."

"So me, Jack, Matt, Albert, and Priya are in," said Emma, "That leaves..."

"Hold on. I didn't vote yet," interrupted Jack, to everyone's surprise, especially Emma's.

"I'm in, on one condition," Jack said.

"What condition?" Emma demanded, as she looked at Jack with eyes that could've lasered his balls off.

"I'll only do this if I'm guaranteed not to be matched with Emma," Jack replied, breaking into a huge, shit-eating grin.

Emma opened her mouth wide with amused shock and playfully punched Jack in the arm, as the rest of us lost it again.

"Yeah, well, you know we have a plan for that, Mr. Comedian," Emma retorted, without going into further detail.

"So let's see," she continued. "David?"

"I'm a yes," I replied succinctly.

"Grace?" said Emma.

"Yes," responded Grace, quietly but excitedly.

"Kelly?" said Emma, smelling victory.

But Kelly hesitated. Maybe her secret ballot suggestion was a tell, and armed with the knowledge of Kelly's regret over her previous affair, maybe Emma cunningly knew it.

Emma wisely held her tongue and let peer pressure and the awkward silence in the room eat away at Kelly's resistance.

It was ironic that the adulterer among us was the one blocking our path to adultery. But maybe Kelly knew something from experience that the rest of us didn't.

Kelly finally opened her mouth to speak. "Oh what the hell, let's do it," she sighed, as cheers erupted.

"Don't worry, Kel," said Matt, "If you get me, you'll be coming back for more," which made everyone laugh, Kelly included.

"So, are we gonna just put some slips of paper in a bag and draw?" Matt asked.

"No, Jack came up with something a little more sophisticated," responded Emma, turning to Jack.

"Oh, right," said Jack. "I thought we could get a bunch of burner phones."

We all looked puzzled.

Jack explained: "See, each phone will be anonymously paired with one other phone, and those two phones will be able to send messages only to each other.

"The fun part is that you can text with your assigned, um, buddy, to have some, say, playful exchanges, but neither of you will know each other's true identity. It will remain a mystery until we get back to our hotel rooms after the dinner, and then at that time we can text our room number to our buddy, and then, you know, whatever happens, happens.

"And burner phones are called that for a reason, so they would stay in Vegas with, you know, everything else."

It took a moment or two to process what Jack was saying, but when the light went on, everyone was like, "That's brilliant! How the hell did you dream that up?"

"Well, you know, that's what I do best, think of ways to get into my coworkers' panties," Jack replied, inducing more laughter.

"Ha Ha, Mr. Funnyman," said Emma dryly. "Anyway, do any of you know a good place to buy burner phones? I mean it might look kind of suspicious if someone walks into Walmart and asks for eight burner phones, and I wouldn't want to run into my neighbors."

No one said anything, so I decided to volunteer. "I'll take care of it," I said, not knowing exactly how I would.

"Oh, thank you, David," Emma said. "We'll collect some money and..."

"Oh, no worries, we can work it out later," I replied.

Emma glanced at her phone and said, "Shit! It's almost 6:00 already. Sorry! Better let everyone know that you'll be late for dinner."