by L E May
‘No worries. I saw Steph’s photos on Facebook.’
Steven’s cheeks flushed slightly and I wondered if he was embarrassed by his comments about me.
‘That Chris guy sent me a friend request,’ I added. He didn’t seem too surprised by that.
‘Chris spends a lot of time online, he likes to add to his ever-expanding network of friends. Plus, he will want to see more pictures, check if you’re as hot as he thought you were in that photo!’
‘Well I expect he will be disappointed then. We had a brief chat actually, he seems interesting.’ It was more of a question than a statement. It suddenly seemed important to me that Steven had a good opinion of him.
‘Yeah he’s great; I lived with him at uni. I grew up a lot when he moved in.’
I noticed the tone of his voice, telling me he was more mature than his years, not that his age was my only issue. My mind returned to Monday morning and a thought occurred to me;
‘Oh shit, I forgot to text Steph, she’s going to be so mad at me.’ I looked up at him thoughtfully and smiled my brightest smile. ‘Can you do me a favour?’
‘Anything, Ols. You’re the boss remember?’ he teased.
‘OK, well I was meant to text Steph, let her know where we had gone to on Friday night. I forgot. Thing is, she’s a bit into you so she might think I took you away to keep you all to myself or something.’
A small smile twitched at the corner of his mouth, his eyes warm with contained laughter.
‘But I didn’t tell you that, obviously,’ I flushed. ‘So anyway, she’s going to be mad, can you phone up the lunch order? She won’t be mad at you, tell her what happened and get me off the hook too if you can?’
‘How much to tell though? Will she still be mad at you if she knows it’s you I want, not her?’
My eyes widened and I froze. No! He didn’t just say that out loud? I blinked and he laughed.
‘Relax, Ols, it’s not a big deal. I like you, if you don’t feel the same or feel some need to deny you feel the same, that’s cool. I know I need to prove myself to you.’
I didn’t know what to say so I nodded and, pushing myself up off the sofa, I made my way to my desk. I needed to get an office built in; I didn’t think I could cope sharing a room with Steven. I listened in while he made the lunch order to Steph. By the end of the conversation, he was laughing and I knew I was off the hook. He didn’t tell her he tried to kiss me of course, he’s not stupid and he knows the extra generous portion sizes are because of her attraction to him and the hope of something more. I still couldn’t believe he was so open about his feelings, but then I reasoned; he is a nerd, and nerds do deal in facts and evidence. His feelings were out in the open and he knew where he stood, no confusion, no distractions. I envied him his simple outlook. He seemed content, not in the least bit embarrassed or upset by my rejection. He was sure enough of something between us that he felt able to wait around for me to trust him. Could I trust him? Or was this just part of his long game? This was a problem of being self-employed, no one to ask about the rules. If I had a boss above me I could go and talk to my boss, be open about it, and just see what happened. Maybe I just need witnesses. Should I take on more staff? Could I cope with that many people? Yes if I had my own office!
My mind started drifting, picturing myself in a little office, comfy swivel chair, sturdy desk with a new iMac. A name plate on the door. Staff working in the open-plan office outside. Steven walking in, locking the door behind him and striding across the room, kissing me, laying me across the desk …
‘Ols, you’re doing it again.’ Steven’s voice broke through my thoughts, bringing me back to reality.
‘What?’ I asked, slightly disoriented and disturbed by the direction my mind had gone.
‘Staring at me. You can’t tell me you don’t want me then sit staring at me longingly,’ he teased. How is he so comfortable talking about this, I wondered. He grinned at my obvious discomfort. ‘May I inquire as to what you were thinking?’ My face reddened, causing him to laugh. ‘Must’ve been something good. Were you thinking about me kissing you?’ he asked hopefully. Bingo! I frowned and shook my head and he pretended to look disappointed. I scrabbled about in my mind for a subject.
‘I was thinking about Edinburgh …’ I said. Oh really, Olivia Jones, and what about Edinburgh were you thinking? ‘There’s a conference there in a few months, networking, workshops, latest developments, that sort of thing. I thought you might like to go? You’ll be great at the networking, I’m not very good at it at all, and it’s about time we got out there.’ Really? A conference? Where had that come from?
‘You’d let me loose as the representative of Inspired?’ he smiled. ‘That is very trusting of you.’ There was a note of sarcasm to his teasing voice as he emphasised the word ‘trusting’.
‘I’m trying,’ I said quietly, and his face grew serious. He smiled and nodded.
‘Sounds great, I can show you all my old uni haunts.’
I shook my head.
‘No I’m not going. I never go to these things. One of the reasons I hired you was to go to these events for me. Use that abundance of charm you’ve got and win us some more clients.’
He looked disappointed. Maybe he thought he could sneak into my hotel room late at night and seduce me. A tingle ran down my spine and I felt a flush of heat through my lower body. I couldn’t believe this was happening to me, this was not helping me forget about him. How was I going to maintain a professional relationship if my body kept betraying me like this?
‘OK,’ he replied, shrugging his shoulders and returning his attention to his monitor, ‘if you’re sure you can trust me to represent you in your absence.’
I watched him for a moment. I couldn’t work out if he was irritated or amused by the conversation. I realised I was sending out mixed messages. What was I thinking? One minute I’m telling him I’m scared he’s plotting to sue me for sexual harassment so he can ruin my business and steal my customers, and the next I’m inviting him to go off to conferences to meet potential clients. Well if the former turned out to be true then the latter was just me handing my business to him on a plate.
Edinburgh. What was I thinking? Of all the things I could’ve said. I should have just said, ‘Yes, I think about you kissing me all the time,’ in a sarcastic tone of voice.
Chapter Eight
That evening I was wrapped up in my dressing gown, fluffy slipper boots, and a blanket. I opened up the laptop and did a search for some programming conferences. The idea had occurred to me after I’d mentioned Edinburgh. Part of my reason for hiring Steven was to network, despite my earlier reservations I knew deep down he wasn’t out to get me. While I still found it hard to believe that he would be attracted to me considering my age and appearance, I didn’t really believe he was trying to sabotage my business and steal my clients. The truth of the matter was that I found his presence distracting, he was very present in the room – even when he was quietly working away I was aware of him and I couldn’t concentrate. I would need a long-term solution of course, but perhaps sending him off to conferences would at least give me some respite in the office.
As I was searching, a Messenger window popped up. I haven’t used Messenger for a long time; I’d forgotten I was even logged in.
Chris Knight: Good Evening, Liv. How was your weekend?
Olivia Jones: It was wonderfully quiet. I completed the story mode of Lego Batman.
Chris Knight: *shakes head* You should get out more. Pretty girl like you should be going out and meeting people, not hiding away behind a video game.
Irritation shot through me. Who was he to tell me how I should be spending my time? I thought about ignoring him – he clearly had nothing of interest to say to me and I had better things to do than justify my lifestyle to him. I continued browsing the web, making a note of conferences and upcoming event dates. The message icon started flashing again.
Chris Knight: Sorry, did I offend you?
/> Chris Knight: I used to moan at Steven all the time for wasting his life playing video games. If he wasn’t doing his college work or working at the bar he was playing games. I just didn’t get it. I still don’t. But he seems to be making a living from it as, of course, do you. So who am I to judge?
Olivia Jones: You probably wonder why I would spend my weekend playing video games after spending all my week working on them?
Chris Knight: Well yes. Where’s the social life? You have to enjoy yourself too, can’t be working all the time.
Olivia Jones: I got into programming because I loved playing video games. I wanted to know how they worked and I wanted to create things that addressed all the complaints I had about other video games. But I still love playing them, and it’s hard to play a game you’ve created yourself; there is no excitement, no surprises, and no puzzles to solve. I spend my week working on a game and then I relax by playing something someone else created, I get the all-round experience.
Chris Knight: Sounds like something Steven would say! I guess you two are all-round video game nerds!
I smiled at that – partly I liked that he had thrown us together as a pair, but partly I liked that he understood our passion for video games.
Chris Knight: I do have one question though, if I may?
Olivia Jones: I assume I’m going to hate this question, the fact you’ve sought my permission to ask it. But go ahead.
Chris Knight: When was the last time you had a boyfriend or went on a date?
It took me a while to respond, not because I didn’t want to answer but because it had been such a long time that I’d been on a date it took me a while to remember.
Olivia Jones: My last relationship ended five years ago.
Was it really that long? What had I been doing with my time?
Chris Knight: Are you serious? Why? The men in London can’t be that bad?
Olivia Jones: I really like the way you assume it’s because I’m picky and not because there’s something wrong with me.
Chris Knight: Well I can see there is nothing wrong with you; you’re smart, you run your own business, successfully I might add, you seem to be quite witty, and your pictures suggest you’re very attractive. I should definitely say it is an error on the part of the male population that you haven’t been snapped up.
Olivia Jones: I suppose it would help if I didn’t stay home playing games and watching TV though.
Five years? It has been a long time.
Chris Knight: So the question now is: why? I don’t think it’s just because you’re too busy. Do you have to be that busy?
Olivia Jones: I guess when I first started my business I spent my days programming and my evenings trawling through business stuff. It was necessary, but now I spend my evenings watching TV because I like it and my weekends playing video games because I like it. I prefer staying in than going out.
Chris Knight: Aren’t you lonely though?
Olivia Jones: Well I have been thinking about getting a cat.
Chris Knight: So you are lonely then?
Olivia Jones: I don’t know, I didn’t think so. My best friend Ruth comes over a few nights a week, I’m not a total hermit.
Chris Knight: Well that’s a relief. So when was the last time you had sex, then?
What? I couldn’t believe he just asked that. I also couldn’t believe I was replying, but I knew the answer would be a shock and it made me giggle anticipating his reply.
Olivia Jones: About five-and-a-half years ago.
Chris Knight: How long were you with your ex?
Olivia Jones: About eight months.
Chris Knight: And for the last six months of that you didn’t have sex?
Olivia Jones: Nope.
Chris Knight: Jeez, what was wrong with that guy? If you were mine I’d be ripping your clothes off every chance I got.
I felt my cheeks flush. My body wasn’t used to all this sexual excitement that seemed to have been awakened since the weekend and the slightest thing was setting me off. It really has been a long time!
Olivia Jones: I didn’t want him to. That was the problem. And after that ended I lost my confidence and by the time it was making a return I’d started Inspired and was too busy to think about it.
Chris Knight: Wow. So what was the problem? Why didn’t you want to sleep with him?
Olivia Jones: Too much history I guess. We had been friends forever and it just never quite felt right being with him, not sexually anyway. I guess while I loved him as my longest, oldest friend, I just wasn’t physically attracted to him. I thought maybe the friendship part was enough but in the end I realised I wanted a full relationship, sex and all.
Chris Knight: Quite right too, sex is great.
Olivia Jones: *rolls eyes*
Chris Knight: Lol but it’s true, it’s a big part of expressing your love and it feels good and it’s something that should be shared with someone you love. Sex can be amazing but you need to trust someone to put yourself in their hands, so to speak, to be able to let yourself go, give yourself over to the wild abandonment required in the pursuit of sexual pleasure. So it’s right you should end a relationship with a guy you don’t feel you want to have sex with. You’d be giving up a huge part of your life otherwise. Poor guy, I bet he was gagging. I almost feel sorry for him.
Olivia Jones: Well he got his own back. He was pretty cruel at the end; caused me to lose my self-confidence and probably explains why it has been five years .
Chris Knight: What did he say?
Olivia Jones: Told me I needed to lose weight and that he hadn’t fancied me anyway – sort of tried to make it sound like he was the one not having sex with me, despite the obvious attempts he had made. I guess he was just trying to make me feel the way he was feeling; rejected, unattractive. But he’s pretty thick-skinned so he got over it and moved on. I didn’t. I comfort ate, got really fat, and now I wouldn’t dream of getting naked in front of someone – which kind of hinders the libido somewhat.
Chris Knight: Turn the lights off. Wear a skirt and just remove your pants. You don’t have to get naked, Liv, to have sex.
Olivia Jones: I don’t know what to do either; he said I was rubbish in bed.
Chris Knight: Of course you were – you had no desire for him, no passion towards him. That doesn’t mean you won’t be excited and passionate with the next guy. What do you fantasise about?
This guy has no boundaries; I can’t believe he’s asking me this stuff.
Olivia Jones: Erm, celebrities I guess. I have a bit of a crush on The Doctor.
That was an understatement!
There was a long pause before Chris replied,
Chris Knight: OK so imagine you’re in bed with David Tennant.
Olivia Jones: No!
Chris Knight: Why not?
Olivia Jones: It’s weird, he’s The Doctor. He’s family friendly, rated U. It’s morally wrong.
Chris Knight: OK just imagine you’re in bed with someone you fancy. Then compare it to how you felt in bed with your ex. I bet there is a world of difference.
I giggled to myself as I tried to imagine myself in bed with someone; trying to stick a face on a body. I pictured someone getting impatient with me while I decided, looking at his watch; ‘Come on, Olly, who do I look like?’ I could only imagine Steven and I didn’t want to think about Steven. But even a slight glimpse in my mind of Steven, half naked, covered only by plain white linen sent my pulse racing. If only Brian had looked like Steven!
Olivia Jones: Yes, I think you are probably right.
Chris Knight: So who do you think about, you know, when you masturbate?
My eyebrows shot up almost off my head. This guy didn’t have any boundaries whatsoever.
Olivia Jones: Jesus! What kind of a question is that?
Chris Knight: Lol, I’m curious. Come on Liv, everyone does it, not many admit to it, but everyone does it. You are only human, and it has been five years. I don’t believe you haven’t had
an orgasm in five years.
Olivia Jones: Haha, I suppose so. Besides, if I didn’t please myself I would never have had an orgasm.
Chris Knight: Again – are you serious?
Olivia Jones: I don’t think it’s that unusual, is it?
Chris Knight: Do you mean penetrative? Or just in general?
Olivia Jones: Erm, both I guess. I mean I accept I’m never likely to have a penetrative orgasm, but men are a bit lazy in my experience, they just don’t know how to touch a woman. They get bored and then they just climb on in till they finish and fall asleep.
Chris Knight: This is shocking. You should feel comfortable enough to be able to direct him a bit if necessary. How many fingers?
Olivia Jones: I’m sorry?
Chris Knight: How many fingers do you insert? When you pleasure yourself I mean.
Eww gross! I could feel my cheeks burning with embarrassment the longer this conversation went on.
Olivia Jones: I don’t.
Chris Knight: So you use a dildo?
Olivia Jones: No!
Chris Knight: Vibrator?
Olivia Jones: No!
Chris Knight said: How do you do it, then?
Olivia Jones: Apparently I do it wrong!
Chris Knight : Lol, no not wrong, just not the way I expected. Maybe you never come through penetrative sex because you’re only used to it from clitoral stimulation. You might be able to train yourself … buy a dildo! :-)
I was beginning to feel uncomfortable with the way this conversation was going. Why was I talking about my non-existent sex life with a complete stranger? Perhaps the sense of anonymity made it easier – like talking to a therapist, someone impartial. He asked questions that made me think and gave me time and space to sort through my thoughts. It was quite refreshing, actually. But still it felt a little too familiar. Like Steven calling you Olly? I smirked at the memory and felt a flush of shame as I imagined Steven starting a conversation like this on his first day!
Olivia Jones: I don’t know about that.
Chris Knight: Exploring your body and what it wants is nothing to be ashamed about, Liv, it’ll make you better prepared for sharing the experience with someone else. Might make you more confident too.