Bed Partners

Levels

Tape 8, Side B

Things remained steady for another month for all of us.

I kept on meeting Qing in secret trysts. We also dine together. Watch movies on cinemas and even drink in bars. But whenever we are in public, we are stepbrothers. When the door closed and we are alone, we get down and dirty on each other.

Life was good that way.

Then another change entered our association.

One day, the whole office was frantic because several important clients will visit our firm. A real estate developer was thinking of getting our firm's service in a series of residential housings and buildings he wanted to renovate or build.

Everyone in the office are scrambling to get ready for the presentation to these important potential clients. Our department are tasked to ready all the blue prints, designs and documents needed for the presentation. Personally, I was tasked to make sure they got the documents on time and ready to be used.

I am also adviced to coordinate with the secretarial department to help set up the conference room.

When our bosses, engineers, architects and guests arrived, I was stationed on the side with a secretary to hand her the documents they might need.

My eyes widened when Qing entered that room. He frowned upon seeing me.

Oh yeah, he doesn't know where I work. I silently signaled him to go on.

"Please sit down, ladies and gentlemen." The VP for Production welcomed them. There are at least twenty people on the conference room.

One of them is my fuck buddy.

Fuck.

I forced myself to remain calm. Qing is here for business obviously. He doesn't know that I work here.

The meeting went underway.

I learned that Qing joined a team of investors in this latest real estate developing surged in the country.

"It's time to replace old buildings that are accident prone. The government is also concerned about these haphazard buildings and establishments. We are tasked to make sure that we will get the best in this business to build stable homes and offices building. Is your firm ready for that?" A man, who is obviously the leader of this investing team, asked.

"Of course, Sir." The VP assured him. "Here in our firms, our architects make designs with stability in their minds. We don't compromise safety for design and just to look good. Our engineers researched for more eco friendly materials and state of the art procedure to build buildings all the time. In our firm, we don't compromise the quality of the things we are building for profits. We are vey excited and grateful that our government is taking a step to renovating and rebuilding old structures."

The leader of the investment team nodded. "We will concentrate on buildings and won't touch historical structures. Keep that in mind. We want beautiful but strong and functional buildings. Something that will last for at least four decades. That's the ideal time frame to say that our money was well spent and those buildings were used to it's capacity. Is it right, Dr.Wang..."

Dr.Wang?

Everyone look at Qing so I stared at him too. Is he a doctor? I thought he is a consultant? What?

Qing nodded, "According to my studies and calculations, buildings grew old too. It's materials turning brittle. We have buildings around that are centuries old. We love tradition but we are most concern about public safety. During earthquakes and tragedy, we don't think about the buildings, we think about saving the lives inside it. We need to replace those old buildings. The government is aware and agreed on that fact. Forget about sentimental reasons, we are talking about saving lives here. Forty years is the safest level to which a building had done it's purpose. We should think about rebuilding those stuctures that are forty years old and above."