Available to Chat

by Sutton, Jacy

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  THE NEXT MORNING, Olivia double-checked her carry-on bag to make sure she’d packed the snapshot she’d found of her and Craig. She stared at the picture for a moment. Craig wore a plaid, denim-blue, button-down shirt with a fussy collar. She was dressed in a pastel blue sweater with mint green trim at the neck and wrists, her hair boyishly short and not overly attractive. But her face was lovely, unlined and glowing. She grinned boldly at the camera, holding half the small wood plaque. Craig proudly held the other half of the journalism school award. She tucked the photo back in her bag.

  Even if she was only going to a midsized Midwestern city at the tail end of winter, this business trip was still a treat. And Olivia knew it was thanks to Craig she’d been invited to fly down to corporate offices to present. Certainly she could have shown her work for the local franchisees via a virtual meeting.

  The minutiae of getting on the airplane occupied her until well after they’d taken off. The older man next to her had already dozed off by the time Olivia finally relaxed and then nearly instantly thought of Jake.

  She shut her eyes and remembered his message. “I missed you tonight. Olivia, I miss you.” She savored each word. Briefly, she let herself imagine Jake standing across from her, taking her hand in his, looking deeply into her eyes and speaking those words aloud.

  She felt certain he would come online tonight, looking for her, but what if instead of the man of tender words, she found the Jake who had been cold and distant? Trying to focus on something else, if only for a few moments, Olivia spied a People magazine stuffed in the seat pocket in front of her. She pulled it out and paged through it mindlessly, but she didn’t have any idea who most of the people were. Feeling old, she shoved the magazine back into the seat pocket and gave in to thoughts of him.

  The flight was brief, though, and the Kansas City airport manageable. Soon she found herself at the head of a formal meeting room in front of a group, numbering about thirty. From Craig’s description, she had expected the crowd would have fit in a midsized sedan.

  Her ads were queued up for presentation. The first showed a family of four, the requisite cute daughter and baseball-capped boy, and the headline read, Agree to Disagree. The table was filled with a bounty of sumptuous food. Sarah had flown out earlier in the month to co-art direct the ads with Home Cooked Café’s internal design staff.

  Olivia spoke briefly about some of the concept work leading up to the final product, and then a woman about a decade younger than Olivia stood in the back of the room.

  “I think the campaign tries too hard. Cute phrasing takes up valuable ad space which could be used for straightforward product information. Why not list the dishes you have sitting out on the table?” she asked. “People are coming for bacon double cheeseburgers, not puns.”

  Olivia’s smile grew tight. “We,” Olivia said, not quite sure who else she was including in that pronoun, “believe the initial reading, which comes off negatively, will engage reader’s attention. The ad already displays some of the food choices, so we’ve caught their visual buy-in. Now we create intellectual buy-in.”

  The woman took a step forward. Olivia eyed her jet-black leather boots and trendy sweater dress, accentuated with a perfectly knotted scarf.

  She spoke again. “While research from five years ago may have supported that, the most contemporary studies indicate a consumer only engages with the ad for 3.7 seconds, meaning we have one, incredibly brief, opportunity to tell our story.”

  “Agreed.” Craig stood, which had the uneven reaction of causing the woman to sit back down.

  Olivia looked at him. The word agreed pulsed in her head.

  “But….” He launched into an impromptu TED-like talk on the importance of immersive experience. As he spoke, Olivia glanced at the young woman who had been advocating for an unvarnished approach. She sat with her arms crossed in front of her model-thin torso, her lips pursed tightly.

  Olivia suddenly remembered a discussion with her college roommate. She’d shown her an ad campaign where the entire class, twenty-four students, had written critiques of her work. Some long missives, some short, blunt paragraphs. Certainly there had been some praise, but it had felt dwarfed compared to the harsh judgments of cocky young advertising majors. And Olivia’s work had likely received more positive comments than many of her contemporaries.

  “Thank God, I’m an accounting major,” the roommate had said, then left to go watch the hockey game at a bar, leaving Olivia alone in their dingy apartment, reading and rereading every judgmental word.

  Craig had finished now. He turned to the woman and said, “Do you feel this could work, then?”

  “Absolutely,” she said brightly. Then she re-clenched her teeth and re-crossed her long, slim legs.

  An hour later, when the meeting broke, Olivia stayed back and waited for Craig to finish some individual discussions.

  “You’re the big cheese here, aren’t you?” she said, with admiration.

  “I told you, Olivia. I found the job for me, and you started me on the path to figuring things out.”

  “Was this trip my reward?” she asked, having enjoyed the view from the front of the boardroom.

  “A bit. But I’m showing off some, too.”

  “Quite all right. It’s wonderful to see your success,” she said, and she meant it. Mostly.

  They met Craig’s partner, Flynn, at a steakhouse in Country Club Plaza. It was light-years removed from any Home Cooked Café. Throughout dinner, they discussed the “in” book that was currently on everyone’s reading list.

  Just as Craig was paying the bill, Flynn got a text.

  “Wow,” he said. “Gretchen McD just stopped at B.B.’s. She’s going to play a set.”

  Craig looked delighted and Olivia tried to look comprehending.

  “She’s a reclusive jazz singer,” Craig said. “She has the most amazing voice, like a young Peggy Lee. But she almost never plays live sets.”

  “Let’s go.” Flynn stood, tossing his napkin carelessly on the table.

  “Olivia?” Craig asked. “Want to join us?”

  And Olivia knew she should. She certainly didn’t go out to jazz clubs on weekday nights at home. And what was the alternative? Sitting alone in a hotel room. Logging on. Looking for Jake. But tonight, he would be looking for her. She felt it.

  “I’m kind of beat,” she said. “Thank you, though.”

  Craig and Flynn walked her quickly back to her hotel on their way to the club. At the entrance, Craig said, “My department has an open position, a junior creative director. It pays a hell of a lot more than the name would imply.”

  “Well,” she said, not considering it at all. “Daniel has just over a year of high school left, and Mike’s not the type to make big, broad changes. Thank you for everything, Craig. It’s been an amazing day.”

  She hugged them each good-bye, then walked through the grand lobby, admiring the decadent decorating and imagining a life lived traveling in the comforts of business class.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  THE MOMENT SHE STEPPED into the mirrored elevator, her senses were assaulted with the memory of an encounter Jake had once dreamed up: a fantasy about him jimmying the controls till they were trapped between floors.

  By the time Olivia made it to her room, she was already feeling slightly breathless, as though instead of riding the elevator, she had run up the four flights of stairs. She unlocked the door and immediately retrieved her laptop from her carry-on. As she did, the picture she’d tucked away for Craig fluttered out and landed to the right of her foot. For the briefest moment, she considered texting Craig and telling him she would come to the jazz club. She could choose to walk away from a possible encounter with Jake. But, instead, she picked the picture up, laid it on the side table next to her and logged on.

  Jake messaged immediately. “I thought about you all day. What did you do?”

  Trying to regain her equilibrium after reading his greetin
g, Olivia took a second to turn the picture over before answering. “Business trip,” she wrote vaguely.

  “Where to?”

  “Kansas City.”

  “Should have come here,” he typed.

  “What kind of business could I do there?”

  “If you were willing to take a subordinate role, we could have come up with a project where you’d be the front person and I’d step in behind you.”

  With one sentence, all the coldness she’d felt recently dispelled, and she was, once again, completely at his mercy, which she knew from past experience he showed little of.

  “Don’t tease,” she typed, thinking, unless you plan to follow through. “Shall we go back to the subject of the day’s activities?”

  “Olivia.”

  “Yes?”

  “Do you understand anything I may type is pure fantasy?”

  “OK. Yes.” She glanced at the back of the upside-down picture.

  “And If I type something of an explicit nature, it is done not to make you fall in love with me…but rather to just turn you on. Way on.”

  “Yes,” she responded quickly. “I want to be turned way on.” There was that familiar stir in the pit of her stomach. Between her legs.

  “And furthermore,” he wrote, “I do this for escapism. For fun.”

  “Yes?” she wrote, wishing he would move past the small print.

  “I am not interested in an extramarital affair.”

  The stir began to dissipate. “Jake, I understand. Would you like me to sign something?”

  “Do you have a pen or a can of spray whipped cream?”

  “Yes to the pen. No to the whipped cream.”

  “Olivia, what are you wearing?” The conversation was like walking a dog through the park, watching Fido run toward a tree, then reverse direction completely to chase a squirrel.

  “Blush pink blouse. Silky. Form fitting. Black pencil skirt. Snug.”

  “Good,” he wrote. “Now, are you someplace where you can adjust your wardrobe as necessary?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then take your shirt off.”

  “Done,” she typed nearly instantaneously.

  “Bra too.”

  “Yes, sir.” She followed his order.

  “Do you have the pen?”

  “Yes,” she lied. The nearest pen was across the room. And she had everything she wanted within a one-foot diameter; couch, laptop, amorous Jake.

  “Now take your left breast in your left hand. Lift it up and out.”

  Although there was no pen she followed the rest of his directions and lifted her hand to her now-naked breast.

  “Now, as low as you can, just where it extends from your ribs.”

  “Yes?”

  “Initial it for me.”

  “Oh. My.”

  “That should suffice. Oh. And, Olivia. Squeeze it hard once.”

  She smiled brazenly and squeezed as she was told. Then she waited patiently for the next directive.

  “Do you want to sign anywhere else?” he asked.

  And almost before her brain could process his question she answered, “Yes.”

  “OK,” he wrote. She imagined that sweet, goofy grin spread across his face. “But you’ll have to lose the skirt. Risky,” he added.

  “Already unzipping,” she typed.

  “Did you shave your pussy lately?”

  Her eyes flew open as she reread. A surprised exclamation caught in her throat. Then she felt a twitch, just where he’d described.

  “I always do.”

  “Then I claim it as mine. Sign a small JA just above the hairline”

  Her body reacted. Hot. Steamy. Wet.

  “All signed in?” he asked

  “Yes.”

  “Very carefully,” he typed, “run your finger between that sweet warmth.”

  She did as she was told.

  “Wet?” he asked.

  “Sopping.”

  “Part it, Liv.”

  “Yes.”

  “Now slide one finger in.”

  “I’m so sorry,” she wrote. “I already did.”

  “Good. Then you’re ready for two.”

  Rubbing her fingers inside her, she waited for the next command.

  “You like?” he typed.

  “Oh yes.”

  “Good. Now that the paperwork is through, we can begin in earnest.”

  “Oh. My.”

  “I would have liked to have seen that for myself,” he wrote.

  “That is too bad,” she agreed. “I think the signing probably needed to be witnessed to be admissible in a court of law.”

  “You’re right. I’d better see. Turn on Skype.”

  Olivia hopped up and grabbed a pen, quickly signing where he had told her. She reached for the hotel robe laying on the bed and threw it on. She wondered if she could accurately term it modesty, not wanting to log on topless.

  As soon as they were connected on Skype, she peered close at the screen. The lights were off in his room except for a small night light behind him, she could just make out that it was the small den, which she knew was on the lower level. Jake touched his finger to his lips and greeted her with a kiss. Mmmmmmmm. Those lips. Those soft, lovely lips. The ones she wanted everywhere on her body.

  “You’re so sexy,” he said.

  “I bet you are, too. I just can’t see you as well.”

  He smiled but made no move to turn on the overhead light.

  “Did you bring the toy?” he asked quietly.

  Olivia’s head tilted slightly. Goodness, they thought alike.

  “If you didn’t, it’s okay. This is enough.”

  Even in this low light, his desire was written blatantly on his face. In his eyes. In his words. And absolutely in the catch in his voice. She was not the only one who wanted this. Not the only one trying not to be transparent.

  “Give me a minute,” she said, standing. “I may have packed it.”

  When she returned, she waved at him with an empty hand, and he asked, “No luck?” His disappointment palpable.

  The smile spread across her face slowly, like early morning sunshine. Pulling the other hand from behind her back, she waved the pink vibrator as though she were a flag girl in a marching band. “Success.”

  Jake’s tongue made a slow, sensual, completely unconscious journey around his lips.

  “Olivia.” His voice was dry, scratchy. “Fall to your knees, baby. Pretend you’re at my feet. Show me.”

  She set the toy down, then let the robe slip from her shoulders. “Let’s get rid of this,” she said as it fell to the floor. With mock innocence, she turned slightly away from the camera so he would see her breasts in profile. She heard his breath catch, and gently she cupped each round arc in her hands, knowing he couldn’t take his eyes off her. As her hands grasped her own warm skin, she explored the fantasy of his touch, his caress. She pretended it was his fingers, his lips, his tongue. Then she turned to look directly at him and said, “Now, you. I want to see your naked chest. Show me.”

  He stepped closer to the camera and pulled his shirt off. With the new angle, Olivia could see a little better. He flexed his arm casually, as though it had happened by accident, and his whole chest tightened, his muscles drawn, his skin smoothed.

  Knowing he was performing, primping just for her, thrilled her, and her breath came out in tiny little desperate gasps.

  “Now, you,” he said.

  “These?” she asked, her voice low, looping one finger into the waistband of her silky panties. The memory of the night she’d stripped for Mike came unbidden, and she thought of how awkward it had been. But Jake drank her in. His rapt attention enthralled her. No man had ever watched her like this, and she reveled in the heat of his gaze, in his appreciative murmurs.

  She dropped the panties, letting them pool momentarily at her ankles. Then she stepped nimbly out of them. “Can you see?” she asked.

  “Everything. So erotic.”

 
Gracefully, Olivia fell to her knees. In her mind he was before her. She could imagine her hands on his legs, strong and muscular. She could almost feel the electricity as his body would tense when she slid her hands up his thighs, caressing him through the fabric. She’d move her hands to the waistband and then she’d unbutton. She imagined the sweet groan of pleasure that would escape his lips as she’d feel his passion beneath the jeans fabric. She’d unzip. Free him. She pictured looking up and seeing the look of surrender as she took him in her hands. Desire. Heat. Delight. Ecstasy.

  Olivia lifted the vibrator, tilting her chin up. She ran her tongue along the length of the plastic pink toy, moving it seductively up the shaft.

  “Olivia,” he said. “My God.”

  She lingered on the tip, swirling her tongue around the head.

  “Put it in your mouth,” he said. Begged, more accurately.

  Opening wide, she took in the entire length. Her eyes closed, relishing the fantasy. She heard him say her name, sweetly, caressing her with his words. She knew he was building. Getting closer.

  “Touch yourself Liv,” he said hoarsely. “Please. Please.”

  She switched the toy to one hand, and moved the other down her naked chest, over her hardened pink nipple, across her bare stomach, and down between her thighs, to the warm, wet heat. As her finger disappeared from his view, she heard him groan.

  Her own touch roused her, but it was the thought of him watching her perform that brought her close to the edge. The sound of his quick, shallow breaths. Hearing his hot, mumbled exhortations, “Oh, sweet girl. Oh, honey. Oh, Liv.”

  She heard another quick breath and then a shudder. At that same moment, she felt the peak and the delight of that pure heat, plus the thrill of knowing that at that same second, he too had come to that same sweet release by watching her.

  She set the toy down and shook her hair back, turning directly to face the computer camera. She took it in: the scene, the two of them. Both naked, completely intimate with each other, yet hundreds of miles apart. He was spent, having just climaxed, yet he couldn’t wrap his arms around her. Couldn’t kiss her forehead, her cheek. He could not hold her till they fell asleep in each other’s embrace. She wanted that. Wanted truly to be his lover.