The Outsider
Copyright 2009 by EC
EC's Erotic Art & Fiction - http://www.ecgraphicarts.com/
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(warnings: language, adult themes, public nudity, sex between adults)

Chapter 22 – Extra income

When Mike went to work the following Monday, his mood had not improved 
from the way he had felt over the weekend.  He was very angry about what had 
happened to Doña Lisette, partly because he was worried about the effect it might 
have on Ruthie and her temperament, and partly because of his concept of 
fairness.  Ruthie was depressed and moody enough as it was, and it was certain 
that thinking about her mother wasn’t going to improve her outlook on life.

It was strange to think that just a year before his attitude about the woman’s 
predicament would have been totally different.  The idea of an immigrant having 
her work hours cut would not have bothered him; his response would have been 
“if you don’t like it, go back to Mexico.”  Well, that was a year ago.  Now it was a 
situation that hit home because it involved not an anonymous immigrant, but his 
girlfriend’s mother.

----------

After completing his morning classes, Mike arrived at his job to find his co-
worker Sam in his usual spot in the parking garage, sitting in the parking truck 
waiting for him.  Right away Mike noticed that Sam was not his usual laid-back 
self.  Although he was doing what he could to hide his emotions, he seemed 
pensive and was visibly worried.

“Are you OK, Sam?”

“Yeah…OK…but it looks like you’re gonna have to hit the ground running.  Solo 
for a while.”

“Why’s that?”

“Management called me in.  Told me that I’m way overdue to take my vacation 
time…that I’ve got six weeks of use-or-lose leave built up.  I said…’it don’t 
bother me…I ain’t got nowhere to go’, but Don…you know, from 
personnel…says: ‘Sorry Sam…it doesn’t work like that.  You’ve gotta take your 
time before the end of the semester, or we’ll have the university after us.  So 
guess what?  Enjoy your vacation.  We’ll see you in six weeks’.”

“But what’s the problem?  If you’ve earned your vacation, why wouldn’t you 
want to take it?”

Sam paused for a moment, as though he was trying to come up with a credible 
answer.  “I dunno.  It’s just that you get used to your routine…and now I’ve gotta 
spend six weeks sitting at home looking at the old lady and doin’ nothing.  And I 
guess I was hoping you’d get a bit more experience before you’d have to fly 
solo.”

“Sam…I’m sure I’ll be fine.  Do you have a number where I can call you if I have 
a question?”

“Yeah…a number…good idea.”

Sam wrote two phone numbers on the back of a ticket envelope: his house number 
and “the old lady’s cellphone”.

“OK…looks like you’re it…for the next six weeks.  See you at the end of April.  
Good luck, and if you need anything…call me.”  Sam was quiet for a moment, 
and then added:  

“Listen…you’re gonna figure out there’s two ways of doing things around here.  
The management way and the common sense way.  If you have any questions 
about which is which, give me a call.”

Sam took a deep breath, shook Mike’s hand, and got into his own car.  Mike 
watched as he pulled out of the parking garage.  He reported to the dispatcher to 
pick up a radio and returned to Sam’s office to get a box of batteries out of the 
refrigerator.  He opened up the toolbox, and saw his co-worker’s plastic bucket.  
Sam must have forgotten to take it out, but he did remember to take out the coins 
from his last shift.

Mike drove out of the garage and took the pickup truck to the motorpool to get 
gas.  Poor Sam, he thought to himself.  It was obvious he had procrastinated 
taking his vacation for several years and it finally caught up with him.  If he had 
not known ahead of time that he was going to be forced to take time off, there was 
a very good chance that he was not prepared to live off nothing but his legitimate 
salary for six weeks.  Times were going to be tight at home, and he would have a 
hard time explaining to the “old lady” why all of a sudden he had no money.  

As Mike drove back to campus another thought occurred to him.  Sam had a much 
more important reason to be worried than just the sudden loss of his extra income.  
Assuming Mike turned in the money from the jammed meters instead of keeping 
it, every day there would be an extra five hundred dollars from meter collections.  
That probably was not something that would be noticed for a while, until the 
finance unit ran a comparison.  After several weeks, management would realize 
that with Sam absent on vacation, meter collections were consistently up by 
several hundred dollars every single day.  Then what?  Anyone in finance with 
any brains at all would start asking questions.

Mike felt bad for Sam.  He had never seen his co-worker worried before, and 
seeing Sam worried was not a pleasant sight.  He felt guilty because now that Sam 
was not in control of the meter collections box, it was very possible he would get 
in trouble.  Various scenarios played out in Mike’s mind.  The most likely simply 
would be that Sam would be closely watched upon getting back and would have 
to lay low for a while.  Maybe he’d be transferred or forced to retire.  That would 
suck.  Or maybe it would be worse than that.  If there was an 
investigation…would it be possible that management, or even the police, would 
ask Mike what he knew?  How would he respond?

Mike pushed that thought aside and began his routine collecting money from the 
meters.  He vaguely hoped that he would not come across any that were jammed.  
He opened up the back of each meter casing, pulled out the canister, and dumped 
the coins into the metal box.  The first coins made a loud clattering noise as they 
hit the bare metal; rattling Mike’s already stressed nerves.  

The seventeenth meter of the day’s route was jammed.  The first quarter that had 
gone in fell sideways and was blocking the opening of the canister.  For two days 
quarters had piled on top as people continued paying the meter but no coins could 
drop down.  The canister was empty and the equivalent of three rolls of quarters 
spilled out when Mike opened the casing’s door.  Mike picked up the coins and 
put them in Sam’s bucket.  He fished out more quarters from inside the casing, 
checked to make sure the meter was still working, and put back the canister.

The afternoon progressed as Mike continued emptying canisters.  It seemed that, 
just to taunt him, more meters than usual were jammed; eighteen altogether.  Then 
came another taunt, from the radio station:

That ain’t working…that’s the way you do it.
Your money for nothing and your chicks for free…

When he drove out of the parking lot, Mike was so stressed that he wasn’t 
watching where he was going.  He nearly hit a couple of frat guys driving an 
Escalade. 

“HEY you stupid parking Nazi!  So you want a piece of us?  Come-on faggot!”

“Uh…sorry guys…I…”

“Awww…the parking Nazi is sorry!”

“Look…I wasn’t watching.  I said I’m sorry.  What more do you want?”

To Mike’s alarm one of the frat guys took out a pen and copied his officer 
number.  By regulation he had to give them his name as well.  Great.  Just what he 
needed…to have a complaint filed against him the first day he was out in Sam’s 
truck.  And there was no doubt there would be a complaint filed, because those 
guys hated Mike and would be more than happy to do something that would get 
him in trouble.

There was nothing more for him to do but finish the meter collections and turn in 
the money.  Just as he was about to head back to the parking garage, Mike heard 
his radio beep.

“Officer # 36, this is Officer # 06.  Where are you right now?”

Shit.  Officer # 06 was the shift supervisor.

“Officer # 06, this is Officer # 36.  I’m just finishing with the meters by 
Engineering.”

“Officer # 36, this is Officer # 06.  Roger that.  When you get back, I need to talk 
to you.  Do you copy?”

“Yes, Officer # 06.  I copy.”

Mike was sweating with stress and worry as he returned to the parking garage.  
He knew that he faced a “talking to” by the shift supervisor.  Sure enough, as soon 
as he unloaded the box of coins and had it dumped its contents into the coin 
counter, the receptionist told him that the supervisor wanted to see him.

As soon as the student was in his boss’s office, the supervisor closed the door.  
For the next fifteen minutes Mike withstood being yelled at for being “an 
irresponsible little shit” and causing trouble for the parking department.  Of 
course, in their complaint, those frat guys exaggerated what happened and stated 
that Officer # 036 had been rude, unapologetic, and belligerent about his reckless 
driving.  On top of that they claimed that he had called them pair of “frat fags”.

What mattered to Mike’s boss was not the truth, but the fact that one of his 
employees had been careless with university equipment and exposed the 
department to a complaint.  It did not matter that Mike had earned a huge amount 
of money for the department for all his hard work ticketing, nor did it matter that 
from the very beginning Mike admitted that it was he who nearly caused the 
accident.  

After spending fifteen minutes being yelled at and threatened, Mike left the office 
feeling total despair.  He saw himself for what he was, an un-respected and 
disposable student employee.  It was obvious that whatever he had done for the 
department during the previous semester had no impact on how the managers saw 
him.  

When he returned to Sam’s truck, he took out the box of unused batteries to put 
back in the refrigerator.  His eyes fell on the bucket of coins.  He had honestly 
forgotten about them, with all of the stress over being reprimanded.  Screw taking 
in the coins.  He’d deal with the money tomorrow.  He took out three defective 
meters and put them on Sam’s desk, ready to box up and send to the contractor for 
fixing.  Just as he was about to fill out the address labels, his cellphone beeped 
with a text message.  He looked to see what it was.  More bad news, from his 
bank.  He had maxed out his overdraft protection and had to pay a $ 50 service 
charge.

Mike stood up.  Fuck the bank.  Fuck the meters.  Fuck this job.  Fuck Officer # 
06.  He picked up the phone and was just about to call his supervisor and tell him 
to take his parking job and shove it, when Sam’s words came back to his mind:

“This job’s what you make out of it.  Just like any other job.  It’s what you make 
out of it.”

Now Mike was certain that he understood what Sam was trying to tell him.  He 
understood why his mentor had shown him all those places hidden around the 
university, and told him all the dirt about how the campus cops were slacking on 
their shifts.  He also suspected that Sam had let him seen what he was doing with 
his coin bucket on purpose.

This job is what I make out of it…

Mike looked around the parking garage.  There was no one in sight.  He knew, 
because Sam had told him, that the security camera was turned to face the main 
door and its range did not include the spot where the meter truck was normally 
parked.  

Mike looked at the bucket of quarters hidden in Sam’s toolbox.  How much 
money was in there?  How many textbooks would it buy?  How many nights out 
with Ruthie?  Maybe…even enough for a mortgage payment?  At the very least, 
there was enough money to replenish Mike’s overdraft protection and keep him 
from getting hit with any further service charges.

Mike struggled with himself.  He hoped that God would somehow communicate 
to him, because he was about to turn his back on the values he had been raised 
with.  He still wanted to believe there was a place in this world for people who 
were honest.  There wasn’t, of course.  How many times had his father prayed, 
gone to church, waited patiently for guidance, or intervention, or even simple 
encouragement, only to receive deafening silence as a response?  Now Mike was 
receiving the same response…silence.

Words could not describe what happened to Mike at that moment, as he stood 
alone in the parking garage staring at a bucket of coins sitting in a toolbox in the 
back of a pickup truck.  He had always seen himself as morally superior to most 
other people, but in an instant that ended.  There was no point in trying to be 
morally superior.  Just like everyone else, he had to exist within the set of 
circumstances life had laid out for him.  He needed to resolve his overdraft 
protection problem, and the only way to do it was to help himself to that bucket of 
coins.  

A piece of the action.  

This job is what you make of it.  

I’ve been played for a fool…just like everyone else…

Nervously looking around to make sure no one was watching, Mike pulled the 
bucket out of the tool box and set it in the cabin on the passenger’s side on the 
seat.  His backpack was on the floor.  He opened it up, poured out the bucket’s 
contents, and with trembling hands closed the zipper.  Then he returned the 
bucket to the tool box.  He was afraid, having realized that it was totally stupid to 
have done such a thing in the parking garage.  He’d have to go to one of Sam’s 
hiding places for the next bucket…and yes, there would be a next bucket…and 
one after that.

Mike knew that there was no way he dared walk out of the parking garage with 
his backpack loaded down with coins.  He had to take the truck back out.

He got on the radio:

“Dispatch, this is Officer # 036.  Over…”

“Go ahead, Officer # 036.”

“I’m going over to Econ-A.  I need to swap out a meter.”

“Roger that.”

Mike did drive in the direction of Econ-A, but he kept on going.  He drove to the 
dorm lot and parked behind his own car.  He opened the trunk and moved his 
backpack.  There.  It was done.  That money now belonged to Mike Sinclair.  

A few minutes later Officer # 036 returned to the parking garage and turned in his 
radio.  He was pale and nervous.  The dispatcher gave him a strange look, as 
though she was fully aware of what he had just done.

Mike then called Ruthie to let her know he’d be a bit late for dinner because he 
needed to run an errand at his bank.  When he got there, they were still open, but 
just about to close.  He lugged his backpack up to a teller.

“Here.  I got a phone message about an overdraft.  Is there still time to fix it?”

The teller brought up Mike’s account information.

“If you can make a deposit for the full amount by close-of-business, we can waive 
the fee…since it’s your first time.”

“All I’ve got is some coins…uh…out of my dad’s…uh…vending machine…can I 
deposit them?”

“Sure.  They’re not wrapped?”

“No.”

The teller dumped the coins into a coin counter.  She handed Mike a receipt for $ 
656.25.  Of that money $ 500.00 went to replenish his overdraft protection, 
leaving him with a positive balance of $ 156.25.  The fifty-dollar fee was waived.

Mike was just about to leave when he realized that in the future it was likely he 
would need coin wrappers.  He asked for some.

“How many do you need?”

“As many as you can give me.”

The teller handed him several batches of wrappers.

----------

At dinner Mike was content to let Ruthie talk about her modeling job and her 
classes.  Normally he was interested in what she had to say, but that night he just 
wanted her to talk and not have to pay attention to what she was telling him.  It 
was not that he was tired of her.  More than ever he wanted her with him, to 
assure himself that his life still had some purpose to it.  But during dinner he was 
lost in his own thoughts.

Outwardly, the day had been a fairly ordinary one, apart from getting reprimanded 
by the shift supervisor.  In the morning he went to class, in the afternoon he went 
to work, after work he straightened out a banking problem, and now he was sitting 
with his girlfriend in the cafeteria.  And yet, the day had been one of the most 
important of Mike’s life, one that changed his entire world-view.  During that day, 
he lost a lot of himself.  No longer was he thinking about things such as Mega-
Mart and how to prevent the deterioration of the United States and bigger issues 
such as the meaning of life.  Instead, now that a large amount of cash was within 
his reach, his thoughts were focused on paying off his credit cards, building up his 
bank account, and getting the money he needed to cover his university expenses 
for the next few months.  

Mike had no intention of telling his girlfriend what he was doing.  His main 
reason was to protect her; if he were to be caught, she could not be blamed if she 
didn’t know anything.  Mike also knew that Ruthie would think less of him if she 
knew he was supplementing his income with stolen quarters, because in her own 
way she was idealistic.  The squalid detail of Mike stashing coins in his backpack 
was not something she needed to know about.  When he first realized what Sam 
was doing, he had been tempted to share it with her and hear her thoughts on the 
matter, but later on was very glad he stayed silent.

As he sat quietly, Mike realized that another thing in his life had changed, apart 
from how he viewed himself.  For the first time since he met her, he was keeping 
an important secret from his girlfriend.  He had promised her that he would never 
have any secrets from her, and yet now he had one.  He felt guilty about violating 
that trust, even though it would not have done either of them any good whatsoever 
for her to know.

----------

The next day Mike was nervous as he spent his afternoon twisting canisters and 
looking at meters.  His heart jumped with both fear and anticipation whenever he 
opened a meter casing and coins fell out.  That was “his” money.  

When his shift was close to ending, he nervously entered the parking office with 
the meter collections box on rollers.  Fortunately for Mike, the receptionists 
assumed that his unease resulted from being yelled at the day before, because the 
story about the reprimand had made its way around the office.  With his heart 
pounding, Mike took Sam’s truck back out and drove to a secluded handicap spot 
that was concealed behind some bushes.  He poured out the day’s coins from the 
jammed meters into his backpack, drove to the dorm where his car was parked, 
moved his loot, and returned to the parking garage.  For the next six weeks, the 
trip to the handicap spot, and then to his car, would be part of Officer # 036’s 
daily routine.  Within a week, whatever guilt Mike felt about taking a backpack 
full of quarters as a daily perk from his job had vanished.  The only concerns he 
had were to avoid getting caught and to make the best of his six weeks.  

However, being the analytical person that he was, Mike thought about his 
situation and tried to make sense out of what he was doing, to justify in his own 
mind why he had the right to take money from his employer.  The reprimand 
certainly helped, because the afternoon shift supervisor made it very clear that he 
held the student in low regard and that he could be replaced at any time.  If that 
was the way the Parking Department was going to treat him, then they deserved to 
get ripped off.  Anyhow, what would they do with the money?  Spend it on stupid 
crap like parties for the secretaries and decorations, or for things such as regional 
conferences and trips for the supervisors.  As Sam would say: “Ain’t spending it 
on us, that’s for sure.”

Mike knew that he was doing his partner a huge favor by following his lead with 
the coin bucket.  There would be no change in the daily amount of money from 
meter collections during his absence, so upon getting back Sam’s life would 
return to normal.  Mike did resent the fact that he would only have access to six 
week’s worth of money, but he had to remind himself not to be too greedy.  Just a 
week before, he didn’t have access to any coins at all.  

Apart from getting revenge for the reprimand and the idea he was covering for his 
co-worker, the main justification running through Mike’s mind was “this is the 
way my official salary ought to be”.  He was not stealing because he wanted to 
live a life of luxury: he was stealing to pay off his debts and to have some money 
left over for the next semester.  In a fair society any salary should cover a 
person’s basic expenses, and in the case of a university student, why shouldn’t a 
salary cover the full cost of college?  Why should Mike, or any other student, go 
horribly into debt just to pay for education?  Wouldn’t society be better if jobs 
paid so well that when a student was working, that effort would be sufficient to 
pay for the university?  Other countries paid everything for their university 
students…why can’t the US?  It was a pity that Mike had to put himself at 
personal risk, just so he could have a decent life that by all fairness should have 
been a guarantee from society to anyone willing to work.

----------

During that first week that Sam was away, Ruthie noticed that Mike had changed.  
It was hard for her to define the transformation that had taken place in her 
boyfriend.  It was subtle and yet for her very noticeable.  In some ways he was 
slightly more relaxed, but in other ways his personality seemed to have hardened.  
It was almost as though he had gotten older.  He was more willing to take the 
initiative during their time together, including what happened during their time 
together in bed.  He seemed less interested in the political topics that had 
fascinated him since she had met him, and he even skipped the weekly meeting of 
the Davenport chapter of the Danubian Solidarity Committee.  He seemed less 
bitter about his life and less resentful over what had happened to his parents.  
During the entire week she did not hear a single rant against Mega-Town 
Associates, nor any comments about the spoiled “beautiful crowd”; the elite 
students who drove around campus thinking the world owed them deference.  The 
only thing she could guess was that perhaps Mike’s father had found a solution to 
his problems, although her instincts told her that was not likely.  It had to be 
something else.

She did observe something very strange whenever they went out; starting on the 
Friday night after Sam went on vacation.  Mike took her to Santa Cruz for dinner, 
to a nice restaurant where the bill was $ 80.  He was not bothered in the least by 
the cost.  He surprised the waitress by handing her eight rolls of quarters.  He left 
a roll of quarters on the table as a tip.  When they stopped for gas, he handed over 
another three rolls of quarters.  They stopped at a couple of used book stores, and 
he bought her several books with yet more quarters.  She hugged him in gratitude, 
but was curious to know why he had so many quarters.  He responded with a lie, 
claiming that he had saved all his coins when he was in high school and was now 
spending them.

----------

Ruthie was more conflicted than ever about her relationship with Mike.  There 
was not a chance she would leave him, because he provided her with the only 
companionship she had in her life.  He was always there for her: to take her out, 
to calm her down when she had an anxiety attack, to escort her around campus, 
and most importantly as someone to talk to.  If she was away from him for too 
long, she felt lonely and unprotected, because she did not have anyone else to 
keep her company.

So…what was the problem?  She had a hard time figuring that out.  As she sat in 
Dr. Hartman’s office, she tried to work out her feelings towards her boyfriend.  
She did not love him romantically.  There was not a hint of sexual attraction.  She 
had no idea what she wanted from him for the future; even the thought of any 
future at all made her cringe.  Dr. Hartman speculated that Ruthie did love Mike, 
but in a platonic or family way, similar to the feelings she might have had for her 
cousins Gerardo and Rosa, only more intense.  She wanted Mike as a big brother, 
not as a romantic partner.

Ruthie considered that suggestion.  A big brother.  She had never had a big 
brother; the closest to that was her cousin Gerardo.  

----------

As her confidence in Dr. Hartman increased, Ruthie was able to talk more openly 
about her problems with Mike and sex.  She told the counselor about the first time 
she tricked him into settling for a simple hand-job instead of allowing him to enter 
her:

“I kinda played a little trick on Mike...sort of a naughty one.  We got cleaned up 
and I told him I'd give him a massage and got him worked up...but I had my usual 
thing about having sex with him, so I sat next to him and kept touching him...and 
got him to come...I knew that he wanted to have sex, but I managed to get out of 
it.  I made sure I got it all before I stopped massaging him...”

Ruthie noticed that Dr. Hartman was smiling slightly.  She continued:

“It was a disgusting mess all over his stomach... I kinda said ‘oops’, but I was 
giggling because it was what I wanted to do...”

“Oops, like you didn't mean to bring him?”

“Yes, Dr. Hartman...like...oh too bad...sort of...I mean, I don't feel bad about it 
because I did get him to come...it’s just I got out of having sex.  I'd like to do that 
more often.  But looking at all that semen all over his stomach was kinda gross.”

“You shouldn’t worry about that.  Most men aren't all that picky about how it 
happens.  I'm sure he was just fine with it.”

“He sort of is...worried about it, I mean...he likes to come inside me.”

“Which is not your favorite activity...”

“No.  So I got out of it.  Yay!”

“And yet, he got to come... so it really was a win/win.”

“I ‘spose that's true Dr. Hartman, it's not like he was mad at me or anything.  The 
only thing...was that seeing all that semen on him was a gross-out for me.  He let 
me clean him up with a towel, which I was glad.”

“That was nice…so he didn’t want you to...”

“I couldn't have done that.  At the very beginning of our sex I told him I can't do 
oral.  I'm grossed out by the thought of a penis in my mouth.”

“Well, does he accept that, or does he sometimes bring it up?”

“He accepts it.  As I mentioned a while back, I told him that I have sensitivity 
problems in my vagina and he will have to understand it's something I can't help.  
If he were different, I know he would have left me over the sex issue, but that is 
not a central part of our relationship.  We're both very lonely, and we're together 
out of companionship.”

“Remember what I said a while ago.  There are worse things to base a relationship 
on than a need for companionship.”

“I realize something though.  In some ways I’m with him like I am with my mom.  
With her it's religion.  With him it's sex.  I submit to doing things that are not in 
my nature to just get by.”

“Once you graduate and find a job, you'll be able to be yourself more.  Just hang 
in there!”

“That seems so far off, Dr. Hartman.  So far...Anyhow...what am I gonna do with 
Mike?  I can't marry him.  I don't want kids.  Right now the sex issue is something 
I deal with maybe twice a week...to have to do that every night?  I couldn't.”

The counselor nodded.

“I don't know, Dr. Hartman.  He's already talking...like where would I like to live 
in the future, what kind of house would I like, that sort of thing.  And he 
mentioned kids.  I didn't say anything but the very thought of that makes me 
cringe.  So I get nervous...I get these anxiety attacks.  But the problem I have is 
that I'm real scared of being alone.”


