Unter

* * * *

I had been doubly thrilled when I had discovered that Laurel was also at NC State, majoring in Computer Science. I was majoring in Industrial and Systems Engineering at State. We were surprised that we did not recognize one another from having been around campus together, but we realized that it was more than likely that we had just hung around with different crowds up to this point, and the university population was not a small one, after all.

As for extra-curricular activities, I still ran almost daily, went to classes, and hung around the Kappa Alpha fraternity house. Laurel hung with the geeks and the Computer Science lab crowd.

Laurel was dedicated to getting good grades as a ticket to a good job after graduating. I had learned that Laurel had established high personal and professional goals for her life; striving to make her way in the world through honest work instead of relying on her abundance of good looks and family connections. This was regardless of the fact that she had a trust fund behind her that guaranteed that she would never really HAVE to work a day in her life.

Laurel had swum competitively in high school for two years, but now she swam to stay in shape and to help her detox from all the mental focus required by her studies.

I am a fun-loving guy, while Laurel has been career-focused from the first time we had met. When we were dating later, I thought a couple of times that her single-focus personality might cause us some difficulties. But her loving attitude when we were alone together after we had gotten to know each other intimately overcame those personality differences.

Laurel often appeared to be driven by whatever task was in front of her at times. During our time together at NC State, her school work often interrupted plans that I had made for us. I was annoyed by this at times, as she missed more of the events at the fraternity house with me than she attended.

Actually, I guess that you could say that, in some ways, Laurel and I were both geeks of a sort. She was much more so, however. As a Computer Science major, she loved software development and software application architecture. No one in the industry referred to them as "programmers" anymore; they were "software developers." And they no longer referred to development progress in term of completed "lines of code," since the term du jour now is completed "object modules." As it turned out, I could relate to Laurel's "geekiness" quite well, since I could at least follow her in conversation about what she did as a software architect and developer.

I'd needed to gain some rudimentary software development skills before I met Laurel, back when I was still a sophomore; that was in order to computerize some of the techniques involving statistics and operations research that I had to study later during my junior year. Thus, I could at least follow along with the conversations that Laurel would have with her fellow Computer Science study partners when I sat with them. Those minor skills in software development that I had attained, along with a working knowledge of the lingo, also looked good enough on my résumé to get me hired after graduation by Odyssey Corporation.

In a favorable twist of Fate, Laurel was on schedule to graduate at the same time as me. We'd started dating during the first semester of our senior year. By the end of the Christmas Break, I had won her over.

We took that Christmas Break together at the Timberline ski resort in West Virginia. I imagine, overall, that we spent more time in bed than on the slopes. It was there where I discovered that, to my great delight, this reserved geeky girl to whom I was so attracted could actually be a tigress in bed. We decided by mutual agreement, beginning that first night at the resort, to be exclusive from that point forward.

It was on the second night of our stay at Timberline that I began to learn a bit more about Laurel's family and her background. And it seemed to begin with an odd word choice on Laurel's part.

"Yeah, I almost got creamed," Laurel said, as I massaged her magnificent body after supper. She was lying naked on her stomach. Her head was turned my way and supported by a folded towel. She watched me through cat-like, slitted eyes while I rubbed her body tenderly with some scented oil that she had brought along for the trip.

We'd both had a good time skiing together most of the day, only pausing once or twice for breaks in the morning. We'd lunched at the Timbers Inn, followed by an afternoon of skiing; mostly together, but some of the time separately.

Laurel and I were both skilled enough to handle the blue square slopes and the Salamander. At two miles in length, the Salamander is the longest ski trail in the South -- yes, some folks even consider West By-God Virginia as part of the South. Laurel had opted in the late afternoon to stick with the Salamander, while I tried my hand at one of the less fearful black diamond slopes. It turned out to be a short one that was actually a continuation of a long blue square slope.

While I'd survived my attempt of the Pearly Glades slope, only falling once on the icy texture of the much-used surface and not incurring any injury, Laurel almost encountered disaster higher up on the mountain.

Some yahoo on a snowboard had rudely cut across the path of a family skiing near where Laurel had paused to take a picture of the breathtaking Canaan Valley; a truly magnificent vista spread out before her. The mom of the family, obviously not a very good skier had overcompensated a bit as she'd tried to steer away from the asshole. She'd ended up plowing right into Laurel, who'd been oblivious to the approaching impact.

"I guess," Laurel continued, "that it might have actually caused serious injury to both of us if I had seen her coming and tensed up."

I agreed and said, "Yeah, instead, you just seem to have been bruised a bit where she hit you ... right ... there." At that, I patted her left butt cheek; a lovely butt cheek it was; even with the vivid discoloration from the bruise that Laurel sustained. "Was the lady okay?" I asked.

"Yeah, she apologized," Laurel replied, "And then I saw and heard her husband yelling obscenities at the retreating boarder. The two kids were laughing and shouting about his putting the rest of his monthly salary in the family swear jar."

Here, she chuckled once before continuing, "When I heard those newlies talking about a swear jar, I couldn't help but laugh; we had one of those at the house while Marilee and I were growing up."

"'Newlies'?" I asked upon hearing the unfamiliar word.

"Yeah," Laurel responded. "It's a term that my grandfather on my mother's side used. He would tell us stories about the textile mill where he was a foreman at the time. That was before he moved up into management; and then, years later, eventually became the company CEO.

"Anyway, it was just after the 'Great Depression' and the mill was beginning to expand once more and was hiring on more men. When Grandpa described new workers in his stories, he called them 'newlies' instead of 'rookies.' It was just one of his idiosyncrasies, I guess."

I nodded in understanding.

"Anyway," Laurel continued, "that's why, since none of this family on the Salamander today appeared to be overly steady or experienced on skis, I referred to them as 'newlies.' It's just a term that I heard and used often while growing up."

This was the first of several conversations that we had about our respective families that week. Even though the sex that accompanied those conversations was extremely rewarding, I have to say that it was while simply talking to Laurel that I came to realize by day three of our time together that I actually loved her. I held off on voicing that sentiment right away.

It was two days later when Laurel, already awake and evidently watching my face, grinned at me with her megawatt smile as I slowly emerged into the land of wakefulness, and said, "Good morning, Grady, my Love."

That statement shook the sleepiness out of me quickly. "My Love?" I asked with my eyebrows raised and a tentative smile.

"Yes, Grady," sighed Laurel as she lay her head on my chest, "My Love."

From that point onward, we knew that not only were we exclusive; but, things were probably going remain that way for the rest of our lives.

It was during Spring Break, several months after our ski trip, when we committed formally to marrying and to spending the rest of our lives together. That summer after graduation, we pleased both families, especially her sister who was married to my brother, by tying the knot in the same church where Marilee and Mike had wed just the year prior. My mom teased all four of us that the children coming from both marriages would be double-first-cousins.

At my wedding, my brother, Mike, stood up with me as my best man. Wick Pettigrew also stood with me. Marilee, Laurel's sister and my sister-in-law, served as matron of honor. One of Laurel's childhood friends, a girl named Lydia, was her only other bridesmaid.

Laurel's insistence on neither of us having a bachelor or bachelorette party before the wedding had been a bit of a surprise to me. I asked her why, but she would only say that she had seen and heard too many stories about couples getting dragged into activities that either approached or crossed the line into unfaithful sexual activities. She had reminded me again, privately, of what had almost happened at Marilee's bachelorette party and how it had almost caused a disaster.

My frat brothers were a bit disappointed. They'd wanted to give me a rousing send-off into the world of matrimony. I found out later that Marilee had also been a tad disappointed; she had been looking to having a good party for Laurel, and perhaps for herself, even though she was apparently happily married and loyal to my brother.

But I acceded to Laurel's wishes, opting instead for a nice intimate dinner out with Laurel, Mike, Marilee, Wick, Lydia, and me at the same restaurant that had been the habitué of the Redmond family since the sister's parent's marriage. We ate a wonderful meal, told stories on each other, some true, most untrue, and danced afterward. It had actually been a great time; with the added benefit of no hangover and with our memories of the night before remaining intact, without a smidgen of guilt the next day, and all the days thereafter.

While Laurel and I had settled into married life together with similar goals and aspirations, we continued to approach the day-to-day aspects of life together differently. I grasped new concepts pretty easily; especially engineering concepts. I felt no need to hit the books all the time. Laurel, however, seemed to be studying all the time; when she wasn't in computer lab, she was hitting the books or the library's online research network. She needed to research a concept thoroughly, consult with others, and study it and think it to pieces before she would admit to mastering it. She carried this habit over into her professional efforts at work as well.

Fortunately for our situation concerning where to live after graduation, Laurel was hired by the same company for which my brother, Mike, was employed -- XLT Software in Cary -- and the same town as my new employer, Odyssey. The stars just seemed to align well for us after we graduated and were married, allowing us all to live and work in an area relatively close to where we had gone to school and near enough to both our extended families.

Laurel and I found a nice starter home within a couple of miles of Mike and Marilee's. With the help of a down payment from Laurel's parents as a wedding present, we were set.

My high school cross country experiences had permanently imprinted on me a love for running in the great outdoors; especially in the woods, and there were several natural running trails in and around Cary. While Laurel still loved to swim, she was not into outdoor sports, preferring to spend her time at her development console, which was very much indoors.

However, Laurel did take breaks from her work once in a while, swimming laps to relieve the strain; and allowing the soothing feel of the water to relax her brain and allow her to come to a solution for a particular module for which she might be encountering a roadblock. After a lengthy swim, she'd reach that 'A-Ha' moment. A solution presented itself, and her stroke would pick up. She'd continue for at least another ten laps before emerging from the pool, stripping off her swimsuit -- when she bothered to choose to wear one -- quickly rinsing the chlorine off, and resuming her task at her development console.

Since, after an initial one-year period of working on site in the office, Laurel had been allowed to work from home via telecommuting, it was not unusual for me to come home and find her working away at her computer, naked as a jaybird after a swim.

Laurel would be pounding away at her computer, connected with her office network via virtual private network, oblivious to the world around her, and having forgotten that she had neglected to dress after her quick rinse after climbing from the pool. That elusive software solution she had been seeking was emerging in her brain and she was not going to let the moment slip away for her to document it because of something as silly as taking just a moment to put on clothes.

I often wondered just how the UPS guy would react if he were to ring the bell to obtain her signature and she were to run to the door just as she was.

Whenever I came home and found her working away in the altogether, I'd grab a beer, slip in her office quietly, and simply sit and watch her beautiful naked body in its ergonomic task chair. I'd sit enthralled; enjoying the wonderful bounce of Laurel's B-Cup tits as she typed or maneuvered the mouse.

Eventually, Laurel would reach a transition point, either from validating the creation of an appropriate function or procedure, or from the development of a software interface that merged the best characteristics of two or more disparate software object types, classes, or software modules. She would hold her clenched fists high in the air, in a 'Rocky' move, and spin her task chair; twirling her luscious naked body around with her tits held high by her overhead reach.

After the second or third spin, when she had finally opened her eyes and realized that I was there watching ... well, ogling, actually ... Laurel would zero in on the tent that I would be sporting in my pants. She'd explode out of her chair and dive into my waiting arms.

Depending on our relative levels of gastric need, we would either plunge right into satisfying the other hunger...that of our libidos...or we would postpone that effort until after supper. Needless to say, I would insist that Laurel and I prepare supper together without her having to resort to anything as mundane as...oh...putting on clothes. Yes, life was good.

And then it wasn't.

* * * *

My curiosity started to get the better of me as Wick and I talked and had our drinks at the Doubletree bar while we waited for his lady for this evening to show up.

"Hey, Wick," I began tentatively, "Can you show me that app you're using to line up your dates? I gotta tell you that I am finding it to be a little bit unbelievable as to how easy it was for you to arrange it all."

"Sure, Bud," Wick answered, reaching for his Smartphone. I noticed as he held it up in front of me that it was one of the new Samsung models. "Now, before I was allowed to get the app on my phone, I had to be referred to the very private and exclusive service behind it."

I raised my eyebrows as Wick nodded and continued. "Yeah, it is a referral system that gets you started; sort of like Pledge time back in Kappa Alpha, remember?. Then, you fill out your profile and they check that you aren't registered anywhere as a sex offender or a felon, and that you have a legitimate online payment system available.

"Don't ask me how they do all of that," Wick continued, "'cause I just don't know. Then the site will wirelessly download the app to your mobile device via your cellular service, regardless of whether it's your Smartphone or your tablet or even both; usually within a week of when you complete your profile."

"What do you call this mysterious service?" I asked.

"They call it 'Unter,'" Wick answered, "sort of like the 'Uber' rideshare app."

I suddenly had a strange tingling feeling begin to creep up my spine as I recognized a familiar metaphor in the wording of what Wick had just told me.

"'Unter?'" I asked.

"Yeah, I guess the company that runs this service wanted to capitalize on the similarities of being behind free-market service providers and customers, like those Uber drivers and users," Wick said. "So, they used the German term for it, just like the Uber folks."

Then, Wick got a cagey look on his face and said, "You know, Grady, if you wanted to ... say ... have a trial run at this ... uh ... service; or simply satisfy your curiosity as to how it runs ... you know ... without ... well, you don't actually have to solicit some woman's services or even put yourself out there for some horny babe looking for cock ..." I hesitated for about three seconds before I grinned at him and indicated for him to go ahead with the rest of his explanation.

"Okay; you do know, however, that you need to be discreet about all of this; right?" Wick asked me.

"Wick, believe me. I can be discreet. Do I need to remind you that I have never once revealed the identity of the ne'er-do-well who 'Rolled' the trees in front of the Sigma Chi house with TP during our Pledge semester?" I asked him. He blushed a bit and grinned, being reminded and assured now that I could actually keep my mouth shut when necessary.

Wick continued with what he had been telling me, describing this unique service to which he belonged. As his revelations continued, I now had my inner alarm bells of familiarity ringing like crazy.

I started to say something to Wick about my familiarity with the type of thing that he was describing, but I hesitated for some reason and decided to let him continue. While he spoke, I could not help but remember a conversation that I'd had with Laurel just about a year earlier.

* * * *

Laurel came home very excited one day to inform me that she'd been selected to be on the XLT development team for a new mobile app framework. This was to be a basis for a new web services engine that combined the best features of software-based, web-driven retail sales, online marketing, and social networking.

Laurel informed me that this new app framework would work well on a desktop, laptop, netbook, or tablet computer; but it would really shine when used with a Smartphone, such as an Android or iPhone, and it would synch almost immediately among any or all of those types of computing devices if a person used any or all of them in combination.

I was happy for Laurel at the time and I congratulated her for her selection to be part of such a cutting edge development team. We went out to Red Lobster that evening to celebrate.

Within a few weeks, however, I was beginning to regret Laurel's selection to what appeared to be on its way to becoming XLT's flagship product team. It got so that she was spending more and more time at the office; even on some weekends. When I would bitch about all the time she was away from the house and me, she promised that it would be over soon and then we could get away for a vacation together.

When I asked my brother, Mike, about what the big deal was with this project, he just smiled and reminded me that he was working under an NDA with XLT as well. He just laughed and told me to ask my wife, as he was in marketing and really had no control over the teaming or scheduling over in the development side of the house.