Ever Unknown

by Charlotte Stein

  It felt good to type the unvarnished truth. No euphemisms, nothing flowery. Just straight and to the point and everything that her body was telling her to say. There was something very…light about that, and it lifted her up and made things easy. It should have been hard to talk so graphically to a stranger—and a probable maniac, at that—but somehow it wasn’t at all.

  Oh, that’s good. You’ve exceeded my expectations, I have to say. I didn’t think you’d be so eager and responsive, but I should have known. I should have known.

  It was embarrassing how good his praise felt. Everything grew another notch lighter, until her whole body seemed full of helium and any second, any second she was going to float right out of the office. Only her avid attachment to the computer screen kept it from happening, and said attachment doubled when his next message popped up. She wanted to scream at him to switch to some sort of instant messenger provider, but of course her demands were not what this was about.

  If she made demands, it would shatter the whole game—and the game could not be shattered, now. Not when it seemed to be playing out like her favourite TV show, with her hooked all the way.

  But now, Molly, I want you to prove yourself further. Do you think you’re up for it?

  The word yes had never seemed to have too many letters in it before, but somehow it did right at that moment. She almost went with just a ‘y,’ then caught herself before she became the maniac. She’d felt sure, prior to this, that he was the one—but oh no.

  She was the maniac. It was clear, now. She’d tried to write an email with just the letter ‘y’ in it. You couldn’t get madder than that.

  * * * *

  Walking proved difficult. It should have been easy, really—the item in question was only small—but in practice, sliding a mean little vibrating egg into your pussy, then walking around your office as though nothing was going on…yeah. Much harder than it looked.

  And much more exciting than the simple suggestion had seemed.

  Because of course he didn’t order. He’d made that clear a week or so ago. He wasn’t about ordering. He was about suggestions, and if she wanted to follow those suggestions, why, she could just go right ahead.

  He was a sly thing, really. A sly thing, full of the most awesome suggestions.

  Of course they’d started off small—on a level with the knickers.

  Wear stockings with tops that can almost be seen underneath a too short skirt, touch your left breast while talking to a client until you start to get aroused, brush a hand over Gregson’s ass when you’re in the elevator together, then pretend you did nothing.

  That sort of thing.

  Then progressing to slightly bolder, and more than one a day. On Monday he’d tried for a biggie—cajoling and needling her into masturbating in the bathroom. Telling her how good it would feel, how much her juicy, swollen pussy needed attention. He knew, of course, that she’d been rationing her orgasms, refusing to touch herself too often because that took the pressure off and made it too weak. He knew, because she’d told him so. She’d told him in great and graphic detail, about the incredible climax she’d stroked herself to, thinking about him doing the same, or telling her to do worse things.

  She figured it was those two words she’d used—worse things—that had triggered this slow tumble into insanity. Bright, bubbling, glorious insanity. The insanity was so glorious, in fact that she wanted to lick it off her fingers.

  Just like he told her to, when he suggested she masturbate in the bathroom.

  Then taste yourself, Molly, and tell me what exactly it is you taste of.

  That had been the best one to date, because after she’d described the whole encounter—the firm feel of her clit beneath her busy working fingers, how slippery she’d been, so slippery that it had worked its way down to the crack of her ass, how electric the orgasm had been—he’d described for her what he was currently doing.

  Like a reward. A reward that included such gems as…

  I have my hand inside my trousers, and I’m stroking myself too frantically. Someone’s going to see, but I don’t care. And one day, I’m going to make you not care, too. I’m going to make you so wild, so wanton, that you’ll do yourself right at your desk and not think anything of it, and when you come you’ll call out my name.

  He was a little late, on that score. She already called out his name, almost constantly. The initials E and U had tattooed themselves on her tongue, until he became simply Ever in her head as though the initials just stood for his name, and Ever was it.

  Of course, she knew that was ridiculous. Nobody on earth was called ‘Ever,’ and even if they were, her mystery man certainly wasn’t ridiculous enough to have that as his actual name. He had such a lack of ridiculousness, that he could say things like—I’ve just licked my palm…you know, to make it nice and slick…and slid all of that slickness the entire length of my cock—and not sound ridiculous at all.

  Even if some of the things he asked her to do made her feel just ever so slightly that way. Some of the things like now, as she tried to reach towards the coffee pot in the lunch room and felt that slight pressure, that threat of something shifting just a little too much until…God. God. He’d said it would feel good, but she hadn’t really believed him.

  No one had ever made her do something so lewd before. No one—but now he had. Maybe it was through anonymity and furtive emails and Lord knew what he looked like or who he really was—perhaps he didn’t even work in the office—but it felt real and as if his hands were on her, none-the-less.

  When she touched her clit, she felt his imaginary fingers taking over the task. When she used the vibrator he’d told her to buy, sliding it in to the hilt, it was his cock she thought of in her and him she fantasised about having over her. If it was Walsh—and increasingly she was starting to believe it was, judging by his sneaky looks in the elevator—he was big, and would have absolutely no trouble pushing her into the mattress. He’d have zero difficulty doing what ‘Ever’ had described in email number 455,675…

  I want to lay you out on your bed, face down. You’re not allowed to look at me, and know that if you do, I’ll stop. So you wait, and slowly, so slowly, I spread your legs.

  She thought of that word a lot—spread. He seemed to know that variations of it—spread this, spread that, spread your legs—were some sort of hot button for her, but then, he seemed to know about a lot of things that were hot buttons for her.

  Sometimes she imagined he’d found out through some creepy activity, like going through her rubbish and finding booklists she’d discarded, with titles on it like Do Me Hard, or Kinky Things I Didn’t Know I Wanted. Or maybe he’d just watched her that closely, and knew from emails he’d caught glimpses of, or YouTube scenes from hot movies she’d watched that he’d paid attention to.

  But mostly, he just appeared to be that good. He was just clever, and she was just eager to overplay her hand, and he picked up on every little thing. He’d picked up on the greedy little push in one of her first emails, after all—it almost made her embarrassed now, to look at it.

  And if I don’t?

  At the time, she’d thought it so bolshy and rebellious! But even the word ‘rebellious’ suggested something very specific about her, didn’t it? That she wanted to rebel against restraints, and have them impressed on her even harder.

  This felt hard. The trouble with it was—she’d known just by looking at it that it was one of those vibrating ones, but it hadn’t come with a remote. No button on it to press, nothing to set it going. Just the silver egg, waiting for her in a box on her desk.

  And all she could think was—someone has the remote control. Someone has something that’s going to set it off any second, and all I have to do is pass by them or move too close to wherever they are and bam. Fizzing, burring pleasure. Probably more than she could take, too.

  The thought alone was almost too much. She found herself clenching around it, waiting, strong threads of sensation pulling through her
without any effort employed at all. Just walking past certain people—Walsh and Gregson, notably—made her cream and go weak behind the knees, until she had to sit down at her desk again and pretend to be concentrating on work.

  He’d probably only press the button from a secret hiding place, anyway. Likely he’d had the whole thing planned out, and knew when the woman in the cubicle behind hers went to lunch. Then he’d duck down in the safety of said cubicle, and press and press and press until she did the thing he’d been hankering after.

  Coming at her desk. Moaning while she came. Jesus, if this went on much longer, she was going to get in trouble for not doing any work. Her eyes wouldn’t focus on the computer screen and all her body wanted to do was clamp down hard on that needling little toy inside her. Everything felt flushed and swollen down there, and the slightest movement coiled pleasure tight in the base of her belly.

  She felt pretty sure she’d informed a client that their paid would be monthly in instalments.

  And the worst of it was, he knew! He even emailed her, to crow.

  Having trouble concentrating?

  She immediately wanted to get out of her seat, and look over the tops of the cubicles. At the best of times they felt like a prison, now they felt like a labyrinth surrounding a prison. Inside a wardrobe. Anyone could have been anywhere, watching from all sorts of vantage points. Peering round corners she wasn’t aware of, making sure they were in the right place at the right time so that they could catch her squirming, red-cheeked.

  Though in all honesty, her red-cheeked-ness wasn’t limited to the time she spent at her desk. She was red-cheeked in the lunchroom and red-cheeked by the water cooler. Red-cheeked in the morning and red-cheeked at clocking-out time. Her entire body felt perpetually hot and full to the brim with exquisite pleasure. Until the real pleasure came, and she forgot what that ridiculous impostor had been all about.

  He did it while she was sat in her little cubicle…that nerve-jangling buzz. It made her teeth knock together and her hands tighten around the edge of her desk, suddenly too breathless and brilliantly shocked. Of course she knew she shouldn’t have been shocked. She’d known this was what he was going to do right from the off, right from seeing it.

  But it was, all the same. It felt too good to be anything but a shock. She bit her lip and tried to hold it in, only he chose that moment to do it again, so her plan didn’t work out quite as she’d intended. And the buzz went on for longer this time, too, so long that she felt sure she was going mad.

  It was torture, plain and simple. Like being electrocuted, only from the inside out and with an orgasm at the end, instead of death. She clicked on her email, but he didn’t have any messages for her, no words of vaguely teasing advice or reassurance.

  Rebellion burst through her again, and she considered standing and really looking for him. He had to be close. But what then? What if she found him, and he turned out to be awful, or else completely different without the veil of anonymity? What if he became enraged by her refusal to sit down and take this amazing, thrilling, undeniable pleasure?

  How ungrateful she was. What a silly little nothing.

  She sobbed into her fist, and hunched all the way over her desk. If she hunched, no one would know that everywhere between her legs felt like molten lava, or that she was just an inch away from coming over something as slight as a mild buzzing against every sensitive place inside her.

  Of course, it didn’t feel like something slight. It felt immense, and even more so when he pressed it and pressed it and pressed it. It got to the stage where she felt sure there was barely a pause in between each one, and yet she gasped for it to come back every time it went away. She rocked against that pressure, and bit down hard on her fist, and willed him to do it again—just a little faster.

  Then he obeyed, and she begged him not to. After a while, she wasn’t even sure if she was begging him in her head, silently, or not. Maybe Mavis in the next cubicle could hear her, groaning for him to do it faster, faster, please, make me come.

  Only then it stopped altogether for what seemed like a vast amount of time, and that sob she’d pressed into her fist became a real one. He was a bastard, an utter bastard. She knew what he was trying to get her to do—it was obvious.

  He was trying to get her to finish the job, herself. At her desk. She’d laughed at him the first time he’d suggested it, and this was what she’d got. Punishment. Awful, hideous, electrifying punishment.

  And an email.

  Think you can do it, now?

  So that’s what this was about. Because she’d said, I don’t think so, and laughed. And now he was testing her, pushing her, trying out things that would get her to that place without having to demand or even suggest.

  She wanted to roll in his inventiveness. In truth, she couldn’t think of a single man she’d ever been with who’d had even half of Ever’s ingenuity. It didn’t seem like much on paper, but oh, up close and personal it was delightful. Exquisite. Delicious.

  Never, she typed, with shaking fingers. Then sent it, in the middle of such wonderful squirming, that really did nothing at all. Him responding with the words, “you’re a bad, bad girl,” did more.

  She felt them all the way to the roots of her hair. On reading them she briefly forgot to continue looking over the rest of his email, and rocked and squirmed until a great surge of pleasure ran through her, brilliant and beautiful. She locked her thighs together around it, and it billowed into something so close to an orgasm, so close it almost was.

  It gave a modicum of relief. But in the end, it only made her hunger for more, more, while her need to know who he was grew deeper. It had practically burrowed its way right to the centre of her, by this point, and the rest of his words only exacerbated that feeling.

  I think I’m going to have to punish you, for a word like never. Apparently, bringing you off with a sex toy just isn’t enough—and really, why should I let you off so scot free? I asked you to do it to yourself, after all, and you just relied on me. What am I to do with you?

  She thought of many possible answers. Most of them ended in the word, “spanking.” Unfortunately, her fingers could barely type, and her body felt too limp to do anything other than sprawl over her desk, while her legs dangled like noodles beneath. He’d wrung her out, just like that. Not even a powerful orgasm, to show for her dazed, lax state.

  It took her forever to send him what she hadn’t dared before.

  Who are you?

  And even after she’d typed the words, she found she didn’t want to send them. What if he never replied? What if he did reply, and the answer was something terrible?

  She deleted the words, and tried again.

  Is this James Walsh?

  That seemed more fitting. Or at least, it seemed more like something he could definitely accept or deny. Or would it just be silence, silence that she could then take as a yes or no? She didn’t know, but sent it anyway.

  Then waited. And waited. She waited for what seemed like longer than her slow crawl towards an orgasm had been. It felt as if the end of time came and went. Three clients called and asked her questions she could only just remember how to answer. She responded to other, less interesting emails about nothing.

  Then finally, finally.

  I think I’m definitely going to have to punish you, Molly. Yes. I think that’s what I’m going to have to do.

  Chapter Two

  There were many ways he could choose to punish her. He’d already done a lot of them—maddening sex toys, those cool, teasing words, making her do naughty things like taking dirty trips to the bathroom. Playing with her limits, throughout.

  But she still couldn’t guess what he might have in store, next. While staring up at her bedroom ceiling, she imagined some of her newest favourites—being tied up, being spanked, being told ridiculously filthy things as he fucked her.

  Unfortunately, all of them invariably included him, revealing who he was. And somehow, she just couldn’t push her fant
asies to something as wild as that. He hadn’t responded to the accusation of James Walsh, which more or less solidified him as said person in her mind, and that definitely meant he wasn’t yet ready for any kind of reveal.

  It even suggested the dreaded—he might never be. He might never want to reveal himself, and instead, leave her perpetually in the dark. Maybe one day he’d even stop replying altogether. Just fade away as though he’d never existed at all.

  She almost didn’t dare switch on her computer. And it was an embarrassing relief, to find his name amongst the various other items in her inbox. Or at least, it was a relief until she remembered what he’d said the day before.

  Then her mind went right back to punishment, again. And oh, this was a doozy.

  I’ve arranged something for you, my lovely little Molly. But don’t think of it as a punishment, oh no. It’s not a punishment, really. It’s a gift, I think, like everything I want to give to you.

  Such a romantic. Except, you know, while being an anonymous pervert who sent her dirty emails. It made her giggle with nervous delight that he kept her on the edge of her seat no matter what.

  Your mission, should you choose to accept it—and oh, I know you will, my luscious partner in deviant pleasure—is to remain at your desk until six-thirty. Later, if there are still people in the office. And yes, I know I told you that I’d like nothing better than to see you exposing yourself to strangers and colleagues alike, but this is different. This is very specific, indeed.

  When the office is empty, I want you to go to the second floor—to the office where Paul Sanderson used to work. The one that’s now empty. Once there, you mustn’t speak. If you do, I’ll know you have—you’ll understand how when you get there.