Mutual Release

by Liz Crowe

  Chapter Eight

  “Damn it, Julie.” James tossed a stack of paper on her desk. “I can’t make heads or tails of this, can you?”

  She glanced at it, then at her computer screen. Her bank account was pulled up, glowing on the screen, reminding her she needed to deposit her paycheck during lunch to avoid yet another overdraft. Sighing, she closed the window and picked up the sales reports.

  James leaned on her desk. She tried not to stare. But the man was a vision, a chiseled, tall, blond, near-perfect specimen with bright blue eyes and a great sense of humor. They had been dancing around something for the last near ten months of her employment at his family’s beer and wine distribution company. Something Julie was choreographing to her exact specifications. She leaned back in her chair and let her eyes flicker down his suited frame, making sure he knew she was doing it. Her plan was in place. And she needed to pull the trigger soon before he lost interest, or worse. Stuffing down a flicker of guilt at her own craven manipulation, she reminded herself she was the one who’d been manipulated for too long. It was her turn to have the fucking upper hand.

  Shoving the bag that contained her latest embarrassing shopping excess further under the desk with one expensively shod foot, she stretched, relishing the way his eyes widened at the sight of her breasts straining the fabric of the camisole under her unbuttoned suit jacket. There was not a single muscle, nerve, or sinew in her entire five-foot-eight-inch frame that was not working towards one thing – security. And the tall, handsome, wealthy man leering at her in what she knew was an essentially harmless way represented that plain and simple.

  In the months since she’d been his assistant, James had proven himself to be a serious fish out of water as CEO of Dawson Associates. His bossy mother, a brittle, acerbic woman who would waltz in and out of the offices on a fairly regular basis, was under the mistaken assumption her son wanted this job. He would accept her little pats on the head and answer her questions, sometimes with Julie’s help, about sales, profit margins, any number of things. But when she would leave, James would slump back in his leather chair, breathing heavily as the panic left him. Julie had this whole scene figured out and she was ready to make her move.

  The day after finding her lecherous and no longer useful professor’s empty office, she’d launched her job search, not giving two shits about her degree, the Ph.D., the professorship, none of it. She’d fucked that up royally as surely as she’d let that old man fuck her. Her fault. So she determined to let it go. No one would help her, not unless she let them use her, and that sort of activity was going to stop. Julie was through being used, disrespected, simply because she possessed a body that sent the wrong messages.

  She’d studied the Dawson Associates story, including the rumors about the golden boy James, when she’d seen the ad looking for a personal assistant for the man. He’d been taken advantage of too and was hiding his true self, just like Julie. She swooped in and spent months convincing him she wanted him with subtle flirting, the type which she was not even aware she was capable of, friendly late dinners at the office, beer, wine, and pseudo-confessions. In the process, she’d developed something resembling tender feelings for him. He was really fun, nice, and sincere but hopelessly out of his league with this job that had been handed to him on a silver platter.

  And now, it was time to move on. Shoving away her past, she looked hard to her future. One where she would have what she wanted, and so would James. She smiled at him and stood, leaving just a few centimeters between their bodies. “Shut the door, James, and I’ll explain it to you,” she said, letting her fingers trail along his jaw and slowly, surely, sliding his suit coat off.

  He stared at her with a look in his eyes Julie understood. He turned the small lock and was back in her personal space in an eye blink. His hands cupped her breasts, his lips covered hers, and Julie kept her mind on her goal. Unbuckling his belt and sliding his zipper down, she gripped his cock as a small tickle of panic entered her consciousness. She knew how to do this, understood the mechanics of a blowjob. Her professor had taught her that, along with the principles of a market economy and the value of cap and trade legislation. James gasped when she shoved him down into her chair and dropped to her knees. His eyes were glassy as she leaned up into his lap, cradling his erection between her now-exposed breasts.

  “Jesus Christ, Julie, what are you… ah…” She kept moving, and so did he, staring as his cock moved between her tits, mesmerized. At the last moment, knowing he was about to blow, she slipped her lips over the head and swallowed him, making him groan and grip her hair. It didn’t take long for him to shoot warm liquid down her throat. She made pleased noises, then released him with a flick of her tongue. He sat, gasping, gripping the chair arms and staring at her. “I… um… wow!”

  She wiped her lips with the back of her hand. “I’ve been wanting to do that for so long, James.” She stood, keeping her breasts exposed to his stare. She knew he had a thing about them. But she also knew that she was not what he really wanted. She reached across him to touch a button on her keyboard, revealing her email inbox. He held onto her, pressing his face into her breasts as she pulled up the message that she had intercepted from James Dawson’s boyfriend. “I have a proposition for you,” she said, sitting astride him. Her body was on autopilot now, pleasuring another but receiving none in return, as usual.

  But her goal was within her grasp. She grinned as he groaned and grabbed her hips. His cock was still hard, but that was no big surprise. After reading a few of the email exchanges he’d had with Grant, the director of sales for the company, she knew they were fucking with regularity and were trying to figure out how to be together. She also knew they both fantasized about her, about fucking her between them, about fucking each other while she watched, and about her breasts.

  Her brain shut down while James Dawson, her future husband, licked and sucked her nipples and ground against her crotch. She felt a small, thrilling sensation at one point, but concentrated on what she was supposed to be doing and gave him an award-winning set of moans, sighs, and groans, as tears formed in the corners of her eyes. She hated herself so much at that moment she very nearly jumped up off him, apologized, and ran away before she made a perfectly nice man do something he did not want to do.

  “Don’t cry, Julie,” he said after, as they sat, she still draped around him, both mostly dressed and contemplating what to do next. Luckily, she already knew what was next, already had it all planned out.

  “Okay, so she believes we are taking a break, re-aligning our priorities, whatever,” Julie said into the cell phone as she pointed to the spots she wanted the movers to place her new furniture in the giant loft downtown. James’ mother was actually thrilled her golden-boy son was running away from his unacceptable slutty secretary wife, which suited Julie just fine. Once the woman figured out that she, Julie, could run Dawson Associates the way it was meant to be run, she’d have a change of heart. James’ mother was greedy as hell and Julie knew how to feed that, to convince her mom-in-law she was worth keeping around, while distracting the woman from the fact that her beloved son was, in fact, in love with another man.

  James sounded far away, which he was, geographically speaking, but also emotionally. She sighed, realizing that, were things different, had she not been the woman she turned out to be, they might actually love each other, make babies, and be happy. “I don’t know about this, Jules,” he said. She could hear airport sounds in the background. “It seems so…”

  “What? Perfect? Well thought out? Ideal for all concerned? Jesus, James, you and Grant get a long vacation on the beach and can fuck each other silly for hours at a time. I get to run the company. Your mother gets her dividend check. Everyone is happy.”

  “You are such a liar,” he said, making her wince. Damn if the man did not have her figured out. “But that’s part of your charm. Thanks for this, babe. I mean it.”

  “Sure thing. Have fun. I’m gonna make some changes while yo
u’re gone, though.”

  “I know. Have at it. Be sure and use the toys I got you.”

  She snorted. James and Grant had proven adept at showing her that her own body should be something she could enjoy, and they spent a ton of money and a fair bit of effort on sex toys and other somewhat satisfying activities to that end.

  “Yeah, whatever. If I have time.”

  But no matter what they did, how hard they both tried, she always felt like an object, something to toy with but nothing more, an empty shell no one would ever be able to truly fill. She knew she’d set herself up to fail. But at this point in her life she couldn’t give a fuck. She was finally in control of her own destiny.

  “Make the time, Julie. You are a right bitch when you’re pent-up. I would know.”

  “Yeah, yeah, go on, have fun with your boyfriend. I’ve got this.”

  “Love you, Jules,” he said, making her smile.

  “I know.”

  She touched the end-call button and sat, watching workers place her newly purchased furniture around the large Detroit loft. James Dawson was the only person on the entire planet who got her, and she trusted him as much as she could trust a man. She had made a vow to never reveal him to his mother, to keep his secret as long as he wanted her to. She’d somehow sensed he would be the man who got her from point A to point Z – it really was too bad he couldn’t love her the way she sometimes craved when she let herself admit it. A tear slipped down her cheek, but she brushed it away. No time for emotion, only for forward motion.

  She stood, already yelling at one of the inept moving company employees for putting a divot in the newly painted drywall.

  Chapter Nine

  Three Years Later

  Julie stared at herself in the floor-to-ceiling mirror for a solid two minutes until her arms started to quiver and her back ached. Noting the fine web of lines around her eyes and the deteriorating condition of her skin in general, she groaned when she heard the command.

  “Okay, Dawson, rest, thirty seconds.” The woman’s staccato orders made her wince.

  “Fuck you.” She flopped to the mat in relief. At the tail end of her twice-weekly personal training session, she still could not dispel the memory of Evan Adams. The damn man was stuck in her brain. And no matter how many mental toothpicks she used, he would not budge. She’d told Tanya, the evil trainer, to ramp it up, really push her. But even the physical exhaustion threatening to overwhelm her today didn’t help.

  The whistle peeped, meaning she had another two-minute plank, then about a thousand sit-ups before she could collapse in the hot tub. It was late, nearly ten-thirty, but Julie knew herself well enough by now to accept that if she did not force this training, even at an ungodly hour, she would fall out of the habit and back into the “fat clothes” side of her closet.

  So she ran, cycled, rode the elliptical, lifted weights, planked and crunched until she wanted to puke twice a week at a nearby fitness club about halfway between work and home and hated every blessed minute of it. Later, after roundly cursing the evil Tanya through the gut-busting ab workout, she sat in the tub, brooding, letting the hot bubbles soothe her aching muscles. She trailed a manicured finger through the water as images of the man she’d met by accident and essentially treated like a peasant coming to the queen for scraps floated around in her brain.

  Evan Adams looked like everybody’s dream boy next door. On the tall side, probably six-foot-three or four, with a thick head of light brown hair and arresting hazel eyes, with a near-perfect bone structure which could have led him to modeling. He’d been dressed a little too casually for her taste, in tan pants, a blue dress shirt with rolled-up sleeves, and no tie. A little too handsome for his own good, in Julie’s opinion. He boasted an aura of… something… that made her scalp tingle the entire time she was tricking him into telling his company’s story when he thought he was flirting with the receptionist.

  She sank down into the water, ran her hands over her breasts and slightly flatter stomach – thanks to the bi-weekly torture session – and then lower. Then she stopped, berating herself. You will not go there, Julie. He is just a man looking for your company to help him grow his brand and nothing more. Probably has a girlfriend tucked away somewhere, an adorable dental technician or ad salesgirl with some pseudo-career easily left behind when he bonked her over the head and dragged her down the aisle while simultaneously knocking her up. She sighed and draped her arms along the sides of the tub. Cynic much, Dawson? No, just been there, done that, to a certain extent. And yet…

  Evan Adams…

  She tapped her fingers on the sides of the hot tub, furious with herself for letting him become this weird, near-masturbatory obsession. Julie understood her power over men. She wielded it with a heavy hand. She had to. Running a giant beer and wine distribution company, turning it from a sick joke near bankruptcy into a place employing nearly a hundred people and turned a profit of over two million dollars last year, meant she was a ball-buster by trade. She’d been trained by life itself to be the one in control all the time. And if ever asked, she would admit she loved it. Her power was hard-won and she never took it for granted. Most days. But her knee-jerk reaction to Evan, staring down his earnest elevator pitch at the end like he’d been a bug under her microscope, had probably been a bit… harsh.

  Sighing as images of Evan’s large, competent-looking hands and his broad shoulders kept poking at her lonely psyche, she rose, letting the water sluice off of her and grabbed one of the giant towels by the tub. Enough, she said to herself firmly. You went into full bitch mode on the guy, remember? He’ll never darken your doorway again. After thirty years of life’s bumpy ride, Julie Dawson trusted one thing: her instincts. And her gut had insisted Adams needed squashing, if for no other reason than to hold him at arms’ length for her own protection.

  So she’d crawled inside her own hand-crafted persona, fully realizing that if a man had stood there and used words like “tell me why my company would be interested in yours” it would not be seen as “bitchy,” just “aggressively realistic.”

  “Fucking idiots,” Julie muttered as she stared at the email from one of her best suppliers. After reading the guy’s message for the tenth time, she looked up and glared a hole in her assistant’s face.

  Paul merely blinked and said nothing. She sighed and started to put her elbow on the desk and in the process hit a cup of hours-cold coffee, knocking it right into her lap.

  “Perfect.” But she was gratified to note at least the mess got the guy moving. He jumped up, ran out, and returned with a wad of paper towels. After letting him dab at her gingerly for a few seconds, she grabbed them from his hands. “Give me the goddamn things.” She stood, wondering just how ruined her nearly new skirt was and blotted the worst of it. “Stop hovering. Go get me a fresh cup. Please,” she spat at the man, who hurried out of her presence.

  Slumping in her seat, she spun around a few times and contemplated just how weird she’d felt the last few days. Unfocused, klutzy, more snappish than usual, although she figured the staff didn’t notice that last one. She was never warm and fuzzy, even on her best days. But she paid a good wage, and rewarded excellence generously so had very little turnover. She’d done her fair share of firing, but not in a while, and honestly believed at this moment she had the best sales and support staff she could buy.

  Which was why the email from Kevin Lancaster, of Jackson Brewing Company, one of the very first and now biggest of her impressive book of products, making accusations about her staff not working hard enough anymore for his company was so very odd. She let the small bit of protective fury that had been nestling in her brain since first reading the guy’s message fade. Time for a come to Jesus meeting – or, as she knew her staff called it, a “come to Julie” meeting.

  But her head was fuzzy in a sort of aggravating, moony way. She smacked her hand down on her desk to dispel it. When she picked it back up, she spotted Evan’s card tucked half under her desk blotter. Frownin
g, she pulled it out and leaned back in her chair. This was all his fault. She had met the guy once, fallen under some kind of stupid, girlie, lust trance, and now she hardly recognized her own thoughts. Ripping the thing into tiny pieces and tossing them into the bin under the desk felt great. As she did it, Julie forced herself to remember how she’d gotten here, what kept her here, and why it was important to never trust a member of the opposite sex.

  “About time,” she said when a cup of coffee landed on her desk. “Okay, let’s get real here.” She consulted her cheat sheet of accounts and salespeople. “Oh hell, I want the whole Jackson Brewing team in here, yesterday.” She glanced up. “You are still here, Paul. Why is that?” She smiled, and he nodded, making notes as he went. The guy was quiet, but it worked for her as long as he did his job which he did. She’d never been chatty and wasn’t about to start now.

  A few hours later, they had hashed out what went wrong at a few key large retail stores. Julie listened, and Paul took notes as the team discussed the issue – one she had to relay to the egomaniacal president of Jackson Brewing. The last few batches of their signature IPA and their stout had been bad or something. The team pulled the warehouse info and targeted the batch, which was indicated by date and time stamp on the cases.

  Recalling something she’d seen a few days ago online, Julie pulled up a blog article about “trouble with Jackson” and shared it with them. Seems they had fired their brewer for some unknown reason and hired a new kid, and he had managed to fuck up some one hundred barrels – three thousand gallons – of Jackson’s best beers. Customer complaints to the stores were piling up. And so the stores had slowed down their ordering.

  Julie shook her head. “Listen, you guys have got to keep your ears closer to the ground on shit like this. If we had known about this a month ago…” She kept scrolling, looking for more recorded evidence or rumors of botched beer. “Christ almighty, this is a mess.”