by Cee Smith
My whole body worked him like a machine, one hand pumping, mouth sucking, tongue licking, one hand circling his balls, all while I ground my pussy down against my heel, circling for just the right angle, the right pressure that would set me off. Static electricity weaved its way up the course of my body, making every hair stand on edge. Anticipation filled my veins, making my blood dance.
His cock reddened like my mouth was burning him from the inside out.
“Ahhh,” he panted. It was the first sound he’d made other than to tell me how much time I had left, and hearing him affected sent me into overdrive. My tongue was frantic, my mind was scattered. All I could focus on was bringing this man to his knees.
“Two stops.” Two of the most painful words I’d ever heard. Did he doubt I could finish him? I forewent trying to get myself off, doubling up my efforts to make this man come. I focused on the pleasure I was giving him with the attention one uses to understand quantum physics. I honed in on every ripple of need running through him, every fluctuation in his breathing, every pulse of his cock as it thumped against the back of my throat. He swelled and I thought my lips might crack from being stretched so wide.
Unblinking, I looked into his eyes and ran the length of him with just a whisper of teeth. His body shook, like the rumble of the subway rattling across the tracks. This was it. He was right at the edge. Without slipping from my mouth, he leaned over my body and whispered, “Good job, precious.”
He grabbed the nape of my neck with his hand, tilting my head back, and I lavished the feel of his strong hand on my skin and the way he positioned me to his liking. His seed shot across my tongue to the back of my mouth like water from a fire hydrant, and I let him hose down my throat, drinking greedily. With every swallow, our eyes stayed locked. Something akin to pride crossed his face. Was he proud? Of me? I flicked my tongue at his base in response and he shuddered one last time before he emptied himself completely.
He stepped back, and the loss I felt was profound. Being at his feet beneath him and pleasuring him made me feel an awareness I’d never felt before. He sparked a fire inside me, but I didn’t know what it signaled, just that it felt like the start of something. Did he feel it too?
Ryan’s hand clasped my shoulder and the spell was broken. The spark inside dying at the cold hand gripping me in ownership.
Still on my knees, at Suits’ feet, Ryan spoke above me. “What do you say to the man, Indy?” I looked up to find Ryan grinning with an expectant look in his eyes. He liked this. He liked the idea that he could loan me to this man, and somehow Suit and I were indebted to him. The only thing he didn’t realize was that this man could never be beholden to a man like Ryan. Ryan was merely a boy in comparison.
Curious to see if he expected me to say thank you, my eyes drifted up to Suit. I saw no look of expectation, but maybe that’s what encouraged me to say it. Not for Ryan, but for the man in the suit who had given himself to me without expectation.
The lights in the subway car flickered just as the subway hurdled forward. Once again, I snaked my arms around Suits’ legs, my eyes still held by his. We passed through the darkness with a flash of blue light. The flicker pulsed through us, tying us together beneath the underground. The lights punched back on, and I let my arms fall back beside my legs.
I whispered my thanks—words I could barely hear above my own racing heart. He dipped his head in acknowledgement, and I was disappointed that in our last minutes together he chose not to speak.
Ryan guffawed, “She really is something else, isn’t she?”
His question was rhetorical, just something to say to fill the hollowness of the moment. I should have risen to my feet, but I was transfixed to the spot. I knew as soon as I got up, the ethereal feeling of what had transpired would pass, and we’d all return to our daily lives as if this was only a hiccup in time.
Suit mustered up a brief smile (if you could call it that), pacifying Ryan’s boasting. And then it happened. He touched me. Nothing salacious or scandalous. It was sweet, gentle, a touch of heaven against my skin. He palmed the top of my hair, sifting his hand through my inky strands, following the curve of my cheekbones. He tucked my hair behind my ear. Was he trying to see me, unhidden? I lifted my face, my lips parted in a smile, and I closed my eyes and tilted my head like an honorable warrior being decorated with stripes of recognition after winning a battle. His hand continued behind my ear and down my neck until he reached the edge of my top.
The train began to slow. Ryan moved to return to our seats, as we both knew this to be the man’s stop. In an attempt to snap me out of the moment the man and I were sharing, Ryan called, “Babe?”
When the subway stopped I knew the moment had ended, washed away like sandcastles crushed by the lapping waves on a shore. I fumbled to get up, tilting my body forward to unwrap my legs, like a fawn learning to walk for the first time. I crashed against his feet, my fingers destroying the perfect bow of his shoelaces as I caught myself. He reached down to help me up, and once I’d righted myself I noticed his untied laces.
“Here. Let me.”
Maybe I was starting to feel a bit too comfortable at his feet or maybe I just wanted to do something nice—whatever it was that compelled me, I kneeled back down to return him to the perfect condition I’d found him in.
Ryan tapped an erratic beat of his feet. “Indy.” The doors opened—the gunshot that began the countdown of our last minutes together. In a moment the man would exit and be lost amongst a sea of eight million people—a needle in a haystack.
That’s how life is sometimes, I suppose. Right person, wrong time.
I finished tying his shoes, silently hoping I would see him again. While he gathered up his things, I was struck with the urge to know his name. If I ever find him again, I’ll want to know his name, I thought.
So quiet I was sure Ryan couldn’t hear me, I asked, “What’s your name?”
“Vett.”
Before I even had a chance to question the validity of his name, he stepped out onto the platform. He passed me one last look before the doors closed, and our moment evaporated into nothingness.
“That was the hottest thing I’ve ever seen in my life.” Ryan’s voice was animated. Lost in his excitement, it took a while for the truth of his words to hit me. He’d never done this before. I was his guinea pig for erotic play. Perhaps this was the plot in a cheesy porno he’d seen and wanted to experience it in real life, except he wasn’t the one taking any risks. I was. Something about what he’d said ruined the moment, tainting it with the truth that this was all just some sort of experiment for him. We sat side by side waiting for the next stop to come and I wondered what Vett thought of our encounter.
Monday, August 10th
Clearing the fog, I swiped the mirror to see my reflection. Hand dripping with condensation, I wiped the moisture on the terry cloth towel still fastened around my body. With my waves secured atop my head, I stared at the woman in the mirror. You are young and confident. They want you! I pulled out my toothbrush and began scrubbing as I continued staring at my reflection, chanting in my head motivational words that were supposed to make me feel less nervous, but in all actuality made my heart race and thoughts scramble.
Gray dress or the peach blouse and pencil skirt? I probably should have listened to my mom when we were talking the previous night. While I was busy checking my Twitter feed, she was urging me to pick out an interview outfit.
“It’ll make getting ready that less stressful, honey.” Her voice, considered by most as sweet, had become hasty and shrill in the distance that separated us. Don’t get me wrong, I loved my mother, but sometimes she still thought of me as her six-year-old daughter, still needing a solid hand to cross the street. It was why I left my home in northern California to come to New York. When I was applying to college five years ago, I’d made a list of the best schools with the farthest distance from my hometown. Luckily, my grades and test scores were good enough to land me admission at Columbia.
Now here I was, a Columbia graduate with a completed internship and an interview with a prestigious consulting agency in the city.
Hygienic routine finished, I tweezed a few stray eyebrows and separated each mascara’d lash. I blinked a few times before heading back into my bedroom, sifting through every article of clothing I owned, in case I missed something that screamed “Hire me!”
Living in the city, most would expect me to live in an apartment that made a sardine tin look like a brownstone walk-up, but my roommate and I lucked out. My aunt had been on a cruise with her boyfriend and planned on being gone indefinitely, lending us a sick apartment right on the cusp of the Upper East side, aka prime real estate. We stayed in a two bedroom, two bathroom slice of heaven with an honest-to-god walk-in closet—something most New Yorkers could only hope to aspire to have in their lifetimes.
“Teagan!” I yelled, hoping she could hear me over the bass line of some new indie rock group she’d just found. She’d had the same song on repeat, and though I didn’t even know the song, I found I had some rendition of their lyrics in my head when I woke up that morning.
“Tea—”
“Coming! Yeesh!” I heard, just as the sound of music dropped to nothing more than a drum line.
I threw a few more outfit options on the bed before she arrived. And yes, I used the word “arrived” because that is the only way to describe her entrance. All five feet two of her flitted on the balls of her feet like a fairy floating through her garden. She stopped just inside the door to assess the array of clothes lined up.
My roommate and best friend looked like Strawberry Shortcake, if Strawberry Shortcake was all grown-up with punk-rock clothes and a pixie haircut.
Homing in on the array of clothes, she cut straight to the point, “So you want these people to believe that you’re an adult, you have your shit together, and you’re going to bring them a shit-ton of money?”
“Something like that, yes.”
“Well how do you plan to do that when you can’t even pick out your own clothes?” Her lips spread wide, trying and failing to contain her cackling.
“You’re supposed to be helping me, bitch!”
“You asked for it. Besides, you could lighten up a little. Go in there acting like someone who’s 23, not 40 with 3 kids and a husband who’s screwing the secretary.”
“Three kids? Bleh!” I mock vomited across the side of the bed.
“Peach top, black skirt, and these…nude pumps.” She scrounged around the back of my closet before popping out with the shoes in question.
“You know you really should take better care of your shit. What would your mother say if she saw this?”
“I guess it’s a good thing she isn’t here. She’d tell you to put some clothes on, the curtains are open. Oh and she’d say 7 a.m. is an inappropriate time to be playing whatever that is.” I pointed in the direction of her room.
“I guess you won’t be needing me now tha—”
The scream sound of my ringtone blasted through the room, freezing the words coming from Teagan’s mouth. I dashed to the nightstand, sweeping up the phone and noticed “Mom” on the display.
“Speak of the devil.” I raised my phone for Teagan to see.
“Well, you better answer Mommy’s call!”
“Thanks, snatch!” I called after her and pressed accept.
“Hi, Mom.” I answered the call with as much enthusiasm as I could muster without sounding sarcastic.
“Good morning, Indy! Are you ready for your interview?”
“Yep, just picked out my clothes.” Holding the shirt up against my body, I craddled the phone between my shoulder and ear.
“Don’t be late. Remember to smile. Try not to fidget, and keep eye contact. Eye contact is good. Um…” She sounded like she was conjuring up a laundry list of things that she had researched for my interview—all of the same things I’d already read a thousand times over.
“I got it, Mom. Look, I should go. I still need to change, and the train leaves in 20 minutes.”
“Of course. Good luck, honey, and don’t forget to call me after your interview. I want to hear all about it.”
“Will do. Bye, Mom!” The phone was tossed on the bed as I bustled into my skirt and pumps. I buttoned up my shirt and polished the faint touches of makeup. After blotting my lips to smooth out the lip gloss slipping between the faint lines of my bottom lip, I grabbed my portfolio and dashed out of the apartment with a quick shout to Teagan that I’d call her later.
“Thank you for meeting with us today, Indigo. I’m Maggie, the Assistant Director of the Marketing department here at Digital Monument. You’ll be interviewing with me today.”
“Hi, Maggie, it’s nice to meet you.”
For an Assistant Director, Maggie was young. I’d be surprised if she was thirty. Her wheat-colored hair lay in a ponytail across her shoulders like wilted tulip petals, swooping down the lapel of her asymmetrical-cut blazer. She wore a fitted, black pencil skirt similar to mine, paired with a pastel floral blouse that made her less corporate cyborg and more a fresh-linen wearing model out of an Ann Taylor catalogue.
Something about Maggie’s warmth let me know I already had a shoe in. I wasn’t quite sure what sold her on me, but all I needed to do was appear enthusiastic and friendly and the job was as good as mine. With a firm handshake and a warm, open smile, she led the way.
“The executive offices are on the perimeter of this floor. Down the center here we have free-floating cubicles for those working on private projects or who need some quiet time, otherwise each department is grouped together in the pods you see here.” We walked down the right aisle of the office floor and passed what looked to be large glass cubes. Each pod housed anywhere from 4 to 10 people, with completely different designs and layouts.
“Wow. I don’t think I’ve ever seen an office like this.”
“Yeah. They brought in some really good architects to design the layout. We have a couple conference rooms on this floor, but most of the conference rooms are on the second floor.”
“Right this way we have the breakroom and the restrooms, and down that hall there is the stockroom. And that pretty much wraps up the tour.” Her face was full of pride, and she had every reason to feel that way. I would have loved to work here just for the atmosphere alone. Even the workers, who looked like zoo animals in their glass enclosures, looked happy in their imprisonment. Aside from the layout, each pod had different colored walls ranging from fluorescent to neutral, and furniture ranging from mid-century to futuristic.
Maggie led me to one of the two conference rooms on the floor, and we sat in the plush chairs surrounding the round table in the center of the room.
“I’ve had a chance to review your portfolio. You’ve done amazing work. Your typography is beautiful and the branding you did for Pepsi was stunning. What programs do you work with?”
She asked all of the questions I’d expected and had spent the weekend practicing for. Most of which had to do with my internship and how I could apply the work I did as a curator to any future work with Digital Monument.
“Good, good,” she replied, satisfied with my responses.
She ran through a few more questions—all of them less stressful than the previous one and by the time she asked if I had questions for her, I was floating with relief. I didn’t want to get ahead of myself, but I was pretty sure this interview was a success.
“Yes, would I be working directly underneath you?”
I wouldn’t have minded working for Maggie. Her confidence was alluring but not arrogant. Her posture controlled but friendly—her shoulders making a perfect line, her chin lifted, elongating her slim neck. Maybe it was her welcoming smile or her clothes that felt less authoritative.
“You would report to me, but subsequently you would work for Mr. Belford.”
“…And do you have any idea when you will be making your decision?”
“Unfortunately Mr. Belford is out until Wednesday. Normal
ly he’s the one that interviews candidates, but he’s out of town. I’ll be meeting with him when he’s back in the office and we should know by Friday at the latest. We’d like the candidate to start the following Monday.”
“Have you any other questions?”
“No. Thank you, Maggie.”
“Here, let me show you out.”
She led me back through the glass pods across sterile white floors, reflecting the bottom of my soles perfectly as I made my way back to the front.
“Thanks again, Indigo, and we’ll give you a call soon.”
“Thanks, Maggie! I look forward to hearing from you.”
Exiting the building, I took a large breath of air, holding it in my mouth to wipe the taste of nervousness from my tongue. As far as interviews went, that was a rather painless one, but my muscles still ached with tension as I made my way back to the subway station over on Chambers.
Heat whistled through the cracks in the manholes lining the streets, and I dashed around the enveloping plumes, avoiding the white fog from creeping up my skirt and slipping between the space where my thighs rubbed together as I walked. As I bounded down the steps to the subway, the mass of my hair wobbled like Rapunzel’s locks ready to tumble. I managed to keep every strand intact. Holding my bun with one hand, I shoved through the turnstiles and jumped on the train car about to depart.
Interview went well! I texted Teagan as I settled into my seat.
No Shit?! It was the outfit. I knew it! So how are we celebrating? A little shopping? An “I’m an adult” party? Both?
I shook my head and texted back, I haven’t gotten the job yet.
You will! Don’t worry about the plans. I’ll take care of everything. ;)
That little winking emoticon made me nervous. I was sure anything she’d plan would far exceed anything I would want, but I couldn’t really deny her a reason to party. It was her specialty, after all, and she could use the experience.
