by Mia Madison
“A baby, a baby,” Hallie forgets her gifts and dances across the wooden floor. “What did he leave you Lana?”
As soon as my hand slides into my little stocking, I know. Tears fill my eyes and I gaze at Noel, looking down at me with the same breathless hold I was just trapped in.
I pull the box out and open it. A perfect diamond solitaire sits inside. Noel gets down on his knees in front of me.
“Will you marry me, my Angel?” he asks.
His eyes are full of love and adoration that I never would have imagined in my life. Tears are rolling down my cheeks harder than they ever have.
“Yes,” I nod.
Hallie is delighted that Santa again brought her everything she wanted.
Me too.
Now read on for your bonus story - a complete standalone Holiday novella
BOSSY CHRISTMAS PARTY 2
15
Chapter 1
Aura
I run up the stairs to the second floor duplex and jiggle the key in the loose lock. When I shove the door open, glad to hear the sound of the TV, I know my roomie’s home already.
“Pop the cork, quick, it’s starting in five minutes,” I shout at Tai, who I’ve been living with since I landed in San Francisco a year ago.
Our sacred ‘TGIF on Thursday night’ lounge-in is about to begin. We always save Thursday for each other mostly so the pre-weekend night is left free for any possible hook-ups. I’m happy the long-standing routine is still intact because with Tai you never know when anything will be upended. That was Tai’s idea because he always has a date for the weekend and it usually lasts the full thirty six hours. Me? Not so much.
“No need to shout,” he says, with the sound of a cork easing smoothly from its shaft with a relaxed suction. “I’m right here in the kitchen, in our splendid five hundred square foot loft living space.”
By loft he means cramped studio meant for one.
“Sorry. Man, there’s no better sound than the wine being opened on Thursday night,” I say, dropping my purse on the tiny stand meant for a single pot plant and crossing the three steps from the sofa to the beeping microwave. I open the door and tug the ballooned bag out.
“Oww, that’s hot,” I squeak when I pop the paper and the steam blasts out in a scorching exhalation.
“That’s the idea behind heating popcorn,” Tai laughs.
“Hot butter and steam though.”
“Don’t. You’re turning me on. I may not make it to my date with Mr MacHottest tomorrow.”
“Come on, it’s starting,” I urge, “final season, what will we do on Thursday?”
“We’ll find something else.”
“But it won’t be the she-wolf Olivia.”
“She’s screaming more than smoldering these days. And she’s developed a serious case of megalomania,” he tsks.
“Power corrupts,” I inform him, like I know the inside scoop on that. If only women could be like that irl, without being labeled a bitch.”
“Are you still having a rough time at LoxTek?” Tai asks, carrying two glasses to the coffee table then shimmying back to the counter to grab the bottle.
“Yeah,” I groan. I haven’t even filled Tai in on all of the nasties that happen to me at my heavily male-dominated geek office.
“You don’t know how lucky you have it. I’d kill to work in an all-man office.”
“I don’t think many of my colleagues play on your team.”
“Impossible to tell these days. The wardrobe of drag queen gear isn’t a given, you know?”
“I know, I didn’t mean it like that. They’re just so macho, but not in an alpha sense, just in their pointed disdain for ‘females’,” I complain.
“Come on it can’t really be that bad.”
I haven’t told Tai, because its just too embarrassing to be universally unattractive to an office full of young, presumably virile men. Some of them are even pretty hot, in a bearded nerdy kind of way.
“Can’t it?” I moan. I reach behind for my purse on the plant stand and pull out the package, still loosely gift-wrapped in the cheapest holly-covered paper. “We had our Secret Santa today.”
“Ooh, what did you get, show me? Is it a tiara?”
He fingers the odd-shaped gift then shakes off the paper and lets out a squeal.
“Why is it so small? Is that girly size?”
“Isn’t it the weirdest looking cock shape you’ve ever seen?” I laugh at how constantly obsessed with size he is. But Tai would know, having had so many more sexual partners than I have. The lurid pink thing is small but has a bulge halfway down. And a pair of fingers under the curve.
“That’s to give you a better filling, girl,” He says like a professor know-all. “After initial penetration. Ooh look, it lights up – I’d say regift me, but you probably already took it for a test drive in the washroom amirite?”
“Ewww,” I squeak, trying not to laugh and splutter my mouthful of butter flavor popcorn all over his lap. “I don’t masturbate at work, do you?”
“Er, yeh-esss. Like every other healthy member of the corporate race. What is wrong with you, Aura?”
“I wish I knew. My co-workers gave me that, all of them en masse. Cutter Dale was meant to be my secret Santa, but he came up to me after lunch and said they’d all chipped in to get me something they knew I needed.”
“A vibe?” Tai laughs. “Even your colleagues are letting you know you need to get laid.”
“Keep it at the office. For stress reduction,” Cutter said “You know when Mr Locksley is out. Or in and giving you a hard time.”
They all snickered at that. And my humiliation was totally because I thought they’d finally come around after months of smirking and innuendo. Me being the only girl in the office, they just made assumptions because there was definitely no reason behind them.
“So they still think you’re doing the boss?” Tai demands. “Is there something you aren’t telling me Aura?”
“No, eww, You know I hate that arrogant bastard. I could never, not if I were stranded on a desert island with him for ten years. Never , ever, ever.”
Tai examines my face like he’s a human lie-detector.
“All I can say is you must need your head examined,” he says, letting me off the surveillance. “Because your boss could examine me any day of the week, and I would pay to be stranded with him. Have you seen that rack?’
I laugh out loud at the way Tai creams over my boss. It used to be men talking about a woman’s rack around the office, so it feels somehow fair that the tables have been turned by women, and gay men.
“Shhh, it’s starting.”
We settle down for our ritual, leaning into each other on the small loveseat to watch our favorite shows over a bucket of popcorn and a bottle of cheap shiraz.
At least the fake butter flavor eradicates the iron tang of cheap wine. While Tai is engrossed in the show, drooling over a young gay man, playing the stay-at-home to an older president’s chief of staff, my mind won’t stop wandering to my personal chief. I didn’t get the chance to tell Tai about the ultimate culmination of my secret Santa humiliation today. Maybe I will during the commercial break, or maybe I’ll let that slide.
I’d sat at my desk staring at the lurid vibrator, too embarrassed to notice that my co-workers suddenly scattered. Instead of the leering faces surrounding me, I felt the vacancy as they suddenly retreated to their desks. Then pressure filled the room, squashing out the air as though a charismatic force had suddenly stalked in.
I looked up to see the rugged face of my boss, Milo Locksley looking down at me, or rather, at the candy pink rubber prick lying across my palm.
“Oh,” I squeaked. “I wasn’t expecting you to come,” A round of guffaws circled the open plan office – no cubicles at LoxTek.
Shit.
“Come back, I mean,” I stuttered on, digging myself a deeper chasm while my boss stared down at me. Was he trying to repress a grin? Or was it a scowl? Emotion
could be hard to read on Milo’s gorgeous face.
Women must be genetically programmed to get wet for stunningly handsome men – the way girl peacocks are for the male when he fans his attractive colors for them. My boss sure knows how to open his plumage for a female. And it always makes me feel like a bumbling idiot on the inside. My mouth refuses to operate, becoming either an accelerator pedal gone soft, or else running away with itself. I can’t seem to focus on anything when Milo’s light fills the space around me.
“Is that an essential piece of equipment for your current project, Miss Johanssen?” He inquired sternly.
He had to do it. He couldn’t just ignore the embarrassing cock in my hand, still flashing purple, green and orange. I couldn’t find the way to make the thing shut off. The more I fooled around with it, looking for where the manufacturer had concealed the off switch, the more manly giggles flew around the room.
“This? Oh no, just a, a, gag gift, from my secret Santa. See?” I reached for the nasty giftwrap but it wasn’t there. I searched under the papers on my desk and under it in case it had fallen to the floor, but the evidence must have been snatched away.
“You’re getting the party started early?” Milo said.
“Me? No. I don’t think I can make it anyway. My, um my roommate has a thing. I said I’d go with him.”
Milo’s face collapsed into a glower at that.
“Attendance is mandatory,” he’d informed me. “This is your first, but you need to know, my office Christmas party is a vital bonding experience.”
Just like that he turned his back and walked into his loft-size office, kicking the door shut with his heel.
16
Chapter 2
Milo
I had to walk away from her.
Aura drives me half deranged every time I walk into my own building. And today, seeing her sitting there in a tight pencil skirt and a blouse open just to the tops of her perfect flesh would be stimulating enough. Seeing her fondle that fake cock in front of me while the rest of the staff pretend they aren’t watching our every glance is more than I can take. My very unfake cock started to rise to the occasion, eager to show her how a real one looks. And feels.
The hunger pummeling at my blood vessels is too much. I order the virtual assistant only desk to tell Aura to come into my office. Now.
Moments later she strides into my office, effectively covering up her feeling of awkwardness to anyone but me. I feel like I know this girl. That she fits into the empty slots in me. The idea that she lives with someone - and she said ‘he’ when she mentioned him - is driving me crazy.
“Invite your roommate,” I order her, no excuses. “To the office party, invite him.”
“But I thought it was strictly no guests. All the guys will hate me if I’m allowed to bring one.”
Why does she always have to contradict me? I need her to take my lead and follow my orders without question. It’s as though she tries to antagonize me.
“They will be catered to, don’t worry,” I snap. “And I don’t mean with girls from the typing pool. What’s the face for Ms Johanssen?
“Nothing.”
“No really, tell me. I’m curious about the way your nose turns up.” I poke at her, knowing how it riles her. “Is it when I say typing pool. You’d prefer I say data entry department?”
“May I be honest, sir?”
“I wouldn’t have anything else, Ms Johanssen.”
My wood is still pressing against my pants, as though sensing the heat in the space between us. The way she calls me ‘Sir’ only stirs me harder. Thank fuck I’m seated behind my island block of a desk. Strange how no one’s ever related the size of the desk to the firmness of the -
“I think a future–direct company like LoxTek would have erased the traditional gender-specific roles assigned in the workplace.”
“How so?” I ask.
I know where she’s going but I want to keep her here with me, standing across the desk while I imagine – things I shouldn’t but do anyway.
“My department is all men,” she says. “I’m forced to work in a modern day bullpen.”
I very pointedly look her up and down, with a look of fake surprise on my face.
“Aside from me, I mean,” she mutters.
“Hmm,” I say, letting the sound vibrate on my lips deeply.
I take the gifted opportunity to continue perusing the length of her body slowly. Taking every incredible curve and swell in as though I were trailing along them with my tongue. She shifts from one foot to the other, then crosses one in front. If I’m not mistaken, which I never am, she squeezes her thighs together.
Now why would she need to do that? If we were really being honest with each other I’d ask her right out. And if she was as truthful as she claims to desire, she’d tell me it’s because she’s wet and hot and tingling.
Instead we continue holding down each other’s stares and talk crap about equality.
“Wouldn’t it be hypocritical of me to hire my employees based on their gender – exactly what you’re telling me not to?”
“I mean there must be women that can do something other than type. And why don’t men type data?”
“Because they know they don’t have the option to find another man to take care of them.”
“My roommate would disagree with you on that,” she quips. Then she startles, probably seeing my darkening mood.
“About the roommate, just bring him to the party tomorrow.”
“Maybe he can liven up my colleagues,” she says. “Less nerd talk for once.”
“I”m not sure anything can liven up that entitled bunch,” I grit and receive another grin.
So clearly she doesn’t entirely despise me. Or she does but also finds me amusing. That’s a start.
What am I talking about a start? There’s no endgame here. Aura at twenty six is a couple years older than her male counterparts but seems light years more mature. While I at thirty six seem ancient to all of them. Or maybe it’s the money that creates the divide. Like me they all piled into development hoping to change the world. Then realize they are, but not for the benefit of humanity as much as to bleed them.
“There’ll be women here,” I tell Aura, watching a little frown crease her forehead. “The Elite Bitches will be here throughout the event.”
I couldn’t miss the wince from Aura at the name of the party planning service I’d hired for the office Christmas bash. Tania Elite had walked into my office in July and insisted I give her company the job of running the Christmas party after hearing I intended to plot the biggest ever for the staff. I told her I’d think about it.
After she finally left, I brought up a trio of volunteers from data processing to hear their ideas. I’m all about giving opportunities to my employees and I also grabbed my own by calling Aura in to join them. But the three women from typing got into a fight over whether there should be a mashed potato bar set up.
“You do remember mashed potato gate?” I remind Aura now.
She grins and throws me a small nod.
“Mashed potato is festive, how?” I repeat my query of the committee of women.
“It’s the traditional food,” she mimics the response of one of the typists.
“No thats turkey and ham,” I join in.
“Well you put the potato in a martini glass and then go to the toppings bar,” Aura adds in a Southern drawl.
It degenerated into a potato slinging fest that would rival the Irish wars. I put the staff input session to bed permanently and decided to hire Tania.
“I hope my potato recoil wasn’t apparent,” I say.
“It was,” she says, throwing me a twinkle.
“Maybe only to you,” I husk.
For that I’m rewarded with a secret smile. I can tell she’s pleased that I brought her over onto my side that day, as much as she tries to antagonize me at every opportunity.
I decided to bring in the professionals and save Aura for some
more interesting task I might think up to get close to her, have her report to me more frequently. When I left the office for a meeting soon after, I found Tania waiting in the parking lot beside my car, determined to persuade me into giving her more than my party. I was manhandled into agreeing. But only after I thoroughly manhandled her in the back of the Range Rover. The seductive owner of Elite Bitches thought she was in charge and had to be taught a lesson in reality.
“I’m sure Tania Elite is very good at what she does,” Aura said with another disdainful wince of that cute nose.
“So you don’t care for girl bosses or those that choose to sit in the typing pool?” I asked, taunting her further, seeing her squirm.
I love to watch Aura get worked up over her girl power beliefs. I even love the way her nose wrinkles in distaste for the things she doesn’t approve of. I detected her nuevo-femme stance her first day on the job and have taken to my reactionary attitude, such as calling data the typing pool, just to see her cheeks flush pink with annoyance. And then, even more delicious, watch her restrain herself from taking me down as I know she’d like to and would if we were out on a regular date. A man and a woman, not boss and employee. Which of course we never would be thanks to the rigid fraternization rules within the tech community.
That doesn’t stop me calling her into my office whenever I’m bored and want some amusement – someone to toss me a challenge.
“You think they choose data entry monotony?” she squeals now, her lips pursing.
I can’t stop thinking of where I’d love to see those lips pinching, even though I know I shouldn’t
“Well no one has shackled them to their position,” I reply, putting elongated emphasis on the words ‘shackled’ and ‘position’.
If Aura Johanssen had a good lawyer, they’d probably get me right there for sexual harassment. But she doesn’t. And I intend to keep it that way.
“And no one offers them the trap door through the glass ceiling,” she snaps.
