by Jamie Knight
‘Are you ready for this?’ he asked.
The man’s voice demanded without asking.
‘I am, sir.’
‘Good. Meet me in the conference room in twenty. Have the Boris file ready and printed.’
‘Already done, sir.’
I handed him the yellow folder, which was clearly thicker than what he expected. I saw him smile as he read page after page. He was impressed.
A man shouted downstairs before Henry spoke to me. There was commotion. A woman, Alice from HR I think, yelled out something that was obviously to warn about danger, considering the tone she used.
Henry left my station and leaned heavily on his muscled weight across the balcony. His face was one of concern. I felt my phone buzz twice. Then three times. I leaned down and took it. The screen lit up with messages from Charlie and my mom that did not make sense at all. They were saying something about a virus, about a pandemic- as if we were living in a sci fi movie.
Henry came to me, his face calm, and his hands on my arms. They were warm tendrils of skin and bone, and my heart skipped when he spoke and looked directly into my eyes.
‘Get everyone off my phone in the next two minutes. Cancel every reservation. When that is done, call a cab and get yourself home. I will call you.’
He ran through his office door and shut it.
The doors downstairs filled with colleagues rushing out. Through nothing more but basic instinct, I did as I was told and packed my bag.
My heart was in the murky pools of dread, not knowing what would happen next. My phone was buzzing. I ignored the messages and dialed a cab. There was no response. Offices were emptying out. There was panic.
I heard a woman say she was heading to a grocery section to max out her credit card. Another man, Mark from accounting, rushed off a bunch of conspiracy theories, saying it was some way for the New World Order to come about.
And then Bart, the security guard outside Palmer’s Sporting Goods working for five years before my time, was smiling as he listened to his country music stereo on repeat while snapping his fingers. He took his earpiece off and beckoned me to him. I ran over.
‘You need to go straight home, Jules.’
‘What’s happening?’
He held my arm and rubbed it in a fatherly fashion.
‘The world finally lost its mind, and we are about to pay for it. Go home.’
‘But the cabs...’
He nodded and radioed someone. His mustache twitched and flickered with every word. He set the orange device down and looked me right in the eye.
‘The truck is coming up. Bernie and the gang will drop you off as close to your place as you need them to.’
My chest swelled with gratitude that he was allowing the building security guards to escort me home. I hugged the man. He had been a moral compass for so long that I thought of him as something close to my dad.
‘Stay safe, Julia. My prayers are with you.’
I did not answer back, simply because I never prayed. A nod did just fine. The truck picked me up and we went our way. The streets were as they were always meant to be in New York City, I supposed. Chaos reigned and sanity was lost.
I saw things that were better left unsaid. The guards dropped me off three blocks away. I nodded at them and they nodded at me, too.
The inside of my house smelled the same; lemongrass tea and macadamia nut cookies. There was no one to hug me, no one to say hello to. I was alone in the middle of rising chaos all around me.
Apparently, I had learned while skimming the news on my phone in the car, a global pandemic called the Coronavirus, or COVID-19, had made its way to our country and everything was being shut down so that people could stay safe. We had to isolate or we could catch and spread this very contagious virus.
I thrust myself inside my beanie bag and let out a long, exasperated sigh, wondering when or if the world would ever be normal again.
Chapter One - Julia
I stand still and pace around the small crowded space, anxiously listening. The woman on the other line has a lot to say with very few words, and I think it better to bite my lip and cool my tongue. She hangs up.
I will not be getting paid, it seems.
Ever since the pandemic broke out in the United States, life completely spun around for me. I got up, dressed up, baked a fruit, sat on the balcony for some good old Vitamin D, binged on a TV series for a whole three minutes, which was the most my brain could take in before it gave up, then tried reading. I had no better luck focusing on the book, though.
It was crap. I had chosen to keep dog walking as a gig ever since the Era of Charlie, as I like to call it. It was a poor choice.
Almost all of New York is covered in brick and cinder. It made sense at the time to alleviate the burden that dog owners upstate had, and I would take my old clients’ dogs out to smell some flowers and feel free. As it turns out, it’s the dog owners that are having such a hard time adjusting to life indoors. The frustration, always, rubs off on me.
Today I had hoped to get some extra cha-ching going. I need to make more money.
Henry coughs from the other room. Instinctively I push three bangs off my forehead and breathe for composure’s sake. I push the phone into my back pocket and pinch my cheeks. I move with ease past the pantry door, through the kitchen and to where he is at, behind his dining room table. He is totally focused on me.
‘Everything alright?’
He pays me, of course, but most of that money gets used up at home back in Arkansas, where my ma and pa live. I could ask the billionaire for a raise, but that would get the plan undone. Who goes ahead and asks their crush for a raise?
I guess the real question should be, ‘who has a crush on their boss for three years and does nothing about it?’
I can answer that one at least. I wanted to do that today. Right here in his house, where the fireplace is still lit from last night and where he could throw me on the table, rip my pointless-at-this-point dress apart and fuck me silly. But my mind is in disarray. I need to make more money. I need to think.
‘Yeah it is. I just need to go home.’
He slides his strong arms across the project we’ve been working on all morning and takes his thin-rimmed glasses off. He licks his lower lips.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘I have some personal issues that just came up that I need to work on. Is that okay?’
He mulls on it for a minute. A stray hair lingers atop the bridge of his nose. I can almost see his mind racing. Please accept. Please. Say yes. Don’t take it further than it has to go…
‘It’s alright. I’ll see you tomorrow if you’ll be feeling better, alright?’
You could have said no and locked me up, you know.
‘Thank you, Henry. I will let you know when I get home.’
The mask is hanging by the sanitation booth. It’s this little black and blue door frame that he had installed awhile back. Every time anyone walks in through the thing, it sprays a sweet-smelling brand of sanitizer from head to toe.
It makes me feel violated, no lie. But it was part of the deal we had agreed upon. And I do hate going back on my word. I put the damn blue thing on and blink for a few second when the sun hits my face.
I stop by the cherub statues for a minute and then resume the trek. The walk down the tarmac is sullen and broken. I see the car, but I also wish I could turn back and see him watch me through the window. Like in those Nicholas Sparks books. Romantic, and the like.
Nope. Not today. Today I am afraid I will find him watching. I would not know what to do with that.
The gate buzzes me through, and I wave to the chauffeur. He opens the door and I settle in. I keep my eyes on the road. We drive off.
Chapter Two - Henry
Well.
This sucks.
Julia’s body is one finely tuned machine, I’ll give her that. The sway of her hip as she walks away, a tug of the skirt behind the small of her back, and the innocent
caress her arms give her light and supple breasts are all enough to make any man fall. I want to be that man.
For weeks I have wished for a moment of clarity, for some kind of sign to make a move on Julia. Today after I had breakfast made for her and sent the workers upstairs to work on the dusty rooms, or their weekly gossip, I asked her to sit with me and work.
We have been avoiding the whole social distancing phenomenon as I definitely know we are seeing no one else. What I mean by ‘seeing’ is having company over. I know I see no one. I hope she’s seeing no one.
She got so close that I could smell her hair. It smelled like it needed my hands to rub it.
I trudge from the window when the cab leaves with her inside of it and sit by my wooden chair beside the fireplace. We ground into each other today by accident.
She knew where her ass was. I knew where my groin was. We knew where we were, at the proverbial water cooler.
It felt good. Three seconds of contact was enough. It was funny how we went back to the table still thirsty and empty-handed. Well, it was funny, anyway, until her phone rang, and she walked away towards the kitchen.
My hand is down my waistline and it feels good to fondle my hard cock with her on my mind.
Julia Cast is the woman who is like a dream when you look at her. Her face is thin and narrow at the middle, like a model who moonlights as a preschool teacher. She smiles when you least expect her to, and she laughs when the joke is perfect.
It has taken me three years to learn about her and who she is as a person, and through that time I feel as though she still holds back so much from. I like that. Mystery engulfs the pleasure a man needs to feel fulfilled.
This room will not cut it.
I shut the folders and secure them in the safe above the fireplace. Marcy and Sarah, my father’s housekeepers, are busy somewhere on the grounds, sniffing around about some neighborhood gossip, I bet.
Comfortably I tread towards my special bedroom downstairs and lock myself in it. I strip down to my socks. I light the room up with red candles and exhale.
I pick up the bottle of lube at the stand and settle into the soft fuzzy chair, knees apart. My cock is still hard from being so close to her, and I stroke it with my eyes closed.
I see her. I imagine her curvy, naked body in my mind’s eye and I think about what I’d like to do it. I imagine bending her over and putting my cock into her tight, wet pussy.
I’d play with her clit while I fucked her.
I’d make her scream my name until she came…
But right now I’m coming, just thinking about her.
That girl really does something different to me. She makes me surrender all thoughts and desire over to her.
I hate that she owns my heart and my mind.
I want to be the who owns her.
Chapter Three - Julia
I should learn from this. Preparedness is not only a virtue, but it can also be a universe of disappointment.
The door feels rough underneath my flaccid and clammy fingers as I push it. Its weight is light and feathery, and I stamp my foot into the fluffy doormat with the misshapen black and creamy cat design on it.
The wood clicks and I chink the key in, locking myself, and my disappointment, indefinitely indoors. Maybe not indefinitely.
Today was supposed to be the day it all met in the middle. Literally.
After so many years of dreaming about being with him, I really thought he make take me.
Henry was supposed to grab my love handles and pull me in and kiss me and fuck me.
That was his moment to shine, to own me like a rag doll and squeeze my body like he would his mortal enemy. Fuck chivalry. And fuck me for needing to leave, to worry about finances and an uneasy feeling I had about someone being at my house. I needed to go check it out but it was a very inconvenient time.
Especially because my gray panties are soaked in the middle.
Thighs spread, I lean back on the wooden and plastic cabinets and rake the still sopping damp panties between my legs. Oh, it feels nice. The pure contrast between hot and cold, my fingers and the floor between my toes, jerks me backward and I stare at the rough-coated ceiling for a brief moment, and then shut them.
Exhale. Inhale. Hold.
I see darkness. I see red and blue lines mirrored in the vast black sea. I taste orange on my thin dry lips, and swallow a gust of shallow air.
I shudder at the grasp of finger and lip and finger. I hear it. The sound of creamy juice melting down my inner thigh.
Probing, I lift the hood and gyrate my thumb. Ah. It feels good, exceptional. I pinch the lip with a shy nail and let it fall. Pleasure.
Dry air surrounds me. I swallow it once again and pull my clit aside, shoving a knuckle’s worth of my finger in. Oh God. It’s warm, slippery. I smile.
A noisy echo bounces off inside my head. A faint image blurs into solidity. Thin face. Slanted eyes. Thick, strong nose with an ignorant bump at the far edge, ending in a swift curve at the tip. Soft nostrils. Wide. Narrow. Two strong muscle humps on either side of his neck.
The sweet smell of anxiety brimming through his exotic cologne. Veins down his strong, muscular arms. Molecules of sweat running down his thick, black, smooth and wild hair. My fingers between these cold strands and warm scalp. My finger tracing down his clavicle, down the crevice between his chiseled breasts, down his small, cute navel, down his neat pubes, down his veined shaft, down into me.
It beats like his heart. The tip throbs. The end of it plays, kisses my clit. I sigh. I gasp on entry. Inhale slowly and surely. His lips and my own share a hello, and we both fall into a sea of forgotten memories.
In my fantasy, he thrusts. I thrust back. My thighs. They clench. They sing. They burn. They struggle to breathe.
My clit, my fingers, my fuzzy mind, the darkness behind my eyes, the high-pitched frequency behind my ears; all meet at the same time and pull me apart in half.
‘Gooooood, oh Gooood.’ I exhale, inhale, hold my breath.
I lose the world for a moment in eternity and scream until there is no more of it. An orgasm wipes my mind and flips a new page. The back of my knees click on the floor. Ass and cunt fire up and make me kneel.
My arm tires. My fingers run loose. They frig. They pump. They do not stop. I breathe and hold my breath again. The powerful climax relaxes and grips me once more. Its origins are from my womb and as high up as my aching nipples.
‘Ahaaaaaghh!’ I exhale, breathe, and hold.
Orbs of light race down my neck, up my mind, down my nipples, up my ears, down my pussy, down my ass and then back up again. My fingers are frantic now, brushing the excited clit in demented vigor and alarming urge. My body shoots down and I breathe out.
I see the floor first thing when my eyes pop open. There is drool on it. I check my face and wipe that off. Wow.
The apartment is cold, alone. I sit up and urge myself to rise. Panties and pants by my ankles, of course. Kicking them aside, I get up. I check my fingers. Slippery and wet. There is liquid fire between my legs.
I should wash up. The blinking light catches me in my stride towards the bathroom.
The device is not plugged in. The screen is blank. The keyboard is dusty. It does not hum.
So why did the laptop camera light blink once and then go dark?
Chapter Four - Henry
‘Will that be all?’
‘Yes. Thank you. Have a good night, Sarah. You too, Marcy.’
The doors click into place and the room resumes its silence. I am one with it, and the cold smooth sip of fifty-year-old malt whiskey joins me for company. The fire in the hearth crackles and spits out, dances like a vibrant Samba beauty and shows me the other side of it, this life, the other life.
It makes no sense how today has passed along, worse than I had hoped but far better than I imagined. My wrist itches. I soothe it with a scratch.
One more sip. Salt would help. Ice too. This might be better. The taste reminds me of the o
ld house growing up. Clambering down the stony steps to find hidden rooms within the mansion. Fighting with fresh zombies and anchoring their souls with my old and ancient magical sword.
Kissing that mysterious girl behind the loft balcony overlooking the grounds’ pond. Fighting with my dad over something as silly as the company. Black umbrellas and suits in kind, with pats on the shoulder and swift clearing of the after-service spread.
It comes full circle, this feeling, this oneness with being alone. I do not mind it. I think of my father a lot tonight. He was a hard man to please, as the old cliche goes. Mother left when he was nothing. She came back when he was something.
He scoffed and she begged enough at his feet and got hers. Now she lives in Malibu or Accra depending on the weekend. She leaves me be. I leave her be, too.
Another sip. This time it is dry. It hits my chest and trickles like pounding pepper down to my gut. I see her for a moment, and pull that image closer.
I see her clearly now. Julia Cast, woman extraordinaire. I get comfortable with her in my mind, even forget the shadows dancing across the walls. She is enough light.
Her curves were the first thing I saw when she walked into my office that day. From the looks of things, she had just been hired by the manager at the time, and I had just intruded on some small talk. Those curves, hidden under the vestiges of a properly ironed office dress with a hint of blessed pearls strung across her neck.
She stuttered before she spoke. I was not calm when she did. It was in that singeing moment, oblivious to the world of our status as employee and employer, as corporate versus individual, that we both realized we were as old school and primitive as the old adage: we were man and woman.
I kept my thoughts to myself, of course. It would have been impolite of me to grieve over her my thirst for such delicate innocence. Julia never looked twice at me when we were in the same geography. I chose to think it was unrequited, for as long as two years.
One year ago, I had tasked her to be my direct aide in a board of governors meeting. She bat no eyelash and took it without question. Through the whole meeting as I listened to the board members talk and release and engage, I felt it.