by Shara Azod
Deciding she could definitely use a distraction, she cradled the phone receiver between her shoulder and her ear and rang her best friend, Kitty Fairmont. While the phone rang she began to absently catch up on her emails, starting with the least annoying first.
“Hey, lady.”
“Hey, you know you were supposed to call me back last night. You didn’t tell me if you figured out why Max demoted your ass,” scolded Kitty.
“I was not demoted, thank you very much, my account was moved to another account lead. And by the way, Max would never demote me. He likes his ‘cookies and cream’ too much.” Fiona shot back.
“I assume you don’t mean Oreo’s.”
“Nope, Nabisco don’t got nothin’ on me. But I do know there is a reason for all of this and the fact that he’s not practicing full disclosure makes me nervous.” Fiona nibbled on her pen in thoughtful silence.
“You still there?” asked Kitty.
“I’m here. I just don’t know what Max is hiding and why it would affect my workload. I don’t complain about it. As a matter of fact, we may be the poster couple for the workaholic life style.”
“Well I don’t know what you’re thinking but I’m sure it’s not something too ominous. He worships your silky thighs, girl. You need to be seducing the answer out of him instead of walking around like he stole your life savings. Clearly it’s something that he is taking seriously.”
“Ok, first of all, I don’t need to manipulate him with sex. He’s usually very forthcoming. I don’t use sex as a weapon like some people, Ms. Burlesque 2012,” replied Fiona, chuckling at her friend’s exaggerated guffaws of offense.
“I’ll have you know I use all my powers for good, thank you very much and just because I am artist and in-tune with my sexuality doesn’t mean I display it all willy-nilly. Now you’re starting to sound like Jonas Judgey McJudgey-pants.”
“I still don’t know why you two don’t get along. Both of you change bed partners like you change hair styles. Both of you are so outgoing it’s like walking into the sun when you enter a room, and you’re both gorgeous. You should get along famously. I bet you’d have adorable critters together.”
“Did you just call my future offspring and your God-children critters? May you be beat with a thousand wet-wipes! I believe the last words Jonas said to me at your house two weeks ago was “you are a loose-moralled, crass, socialist-hippie who talks too loud, dresses to loud and lives too loud.” Mind you I have no idea how one lives ‘too loud’ but I guess that takes me off of his contender list for bedmates.”
Fiona pursed her lips, rolling her eyes at her friend’s feeble efforts to seem oblivious and innocent.
“You forget, Kit. I was there. Before he said that you called him an “entitled, white-collared, capitalist pig with misogynistic tendencies.”He may have been a little miffed.”
“He offended my sensibilities!”
“We were playing Monopoly and making a drinking game out of it! You may have taken it a bit too far, Kitty.”
“He kept landing on Free Parking. He was clearly cheating and assumed he could bat those baby blues and get away with it! Well not on my watch, you big Viking cheat, not on my watch!”
Fiona chuckled at her friend’s long-standing rivalry with her husband’s best friend. She was sure there was a spark there between them, but she never knew why they didn’t act upon it. Regardless, that was something that was between them. Fiona was more worried about her own relationship and why her husband was doing everything he could to stop her from managing their biggest account to date.
“Well, I’m positive that whatever kicked off this sudden concern for your workload was justified, Fi. Don’t let it mess up your holidays. What are you doing tonight, besides standing up for the rights of working women everywhere?” inquired Kitty.
“Nona Santino called me and asked if Max and I could take her to evening mass tonight since she’ll be at our house, Christmas Eve. Max didn’t pick up his phone when she called. He was probably in a meeting with my Director pouring over my blood, sweat, and tears.”
“Ok, well I’ll see you for Christmas dinner per our usual plan. I have to be in Manhattan for “A Very Merry Drag Christmas” tonight, and then I’m picking up my little one for a mommy and daughter Christmas Eve shopping spree. Nothing like a desperate, last-minute crowd to get the blood pumping,” Kitty joked.
“You do realize your little one is fifteen, right?” Fiona teased.
“She’ll always be my little one. Now go home with your hunk and either solve this mystery or put it to rest. Family’s too important to upset because of pride.”
“No, it’s the principle, not pride.” Fi corrected.
“Are you sure? ... Listen, I got to go. I need to pick up costumes at the dry cleaners. Shouldn’t producers slash choreographers have multiple assistants since they have multiple jobs? I have zero, ugh. See you in a few days.”
A Simple Plan Goes Awry
Last Monday
“What do you mean my workload will suffer?” questioned Fiona. “I’ve always been generous with my time with all our clients, and I have never been late with a presentation, project, or deadline. What game are you playing, Max?”
Fiona perched her hand firmly on her hip. She was not in the mood for this random BS Max was throwing her way on a Monday morning. She had a conference call with CompuFire in thirty minutes. This was IWorks’ first potential multi-million-dollar account. Her game had to be tight, her demeanor confident. Angry and disgusted were not going to work for her. Not at all.
“Bill Macy will be sitting in with you at the call today so you can introduce him to the client, and he can be brought up to speed on the account’s current status. I am concerned that you have too much on your plate as it is, and with your work ethic, either your health will suffer or the quality of work will falter due to stress and lack of sleep. As your boss, I feel the work quality has to be foremost on your mind—pride is secondary. As your husband, your well-being is foremost on my mind at all times,” Max explained succinctly, almost clinically.
What happened to the man who’d made her thighs tremble this morning and feasted on her pussy like one more drop of her cream would sustain him all day?
Fiona walked slowly to the front of Maxwell’s desk. Placing both hands on the edge, she leaned forward just enough to make Max’s eyebrows rise at her challenging demeanor. Instead of yelling her head off or becoming belligerent at this blatant power play, she spoke quietly and slowly, her jaw clenched in anger.
“At the risk of sounding insubordinate, Maxwell, you taking an account from me without discussing it with me first, undermining me in front of my department, and then giving me this bullshit excuse of it being for my benefit shows all the signs of weak leadership and a lack of respect.”
She knew her quiet reprimand was a slap in the face to her naturally domineering husband, but she wasn’t one to be trifled with regarding her hard-earned reputation. “I suggest you think hard and long before trying something like this again unless you want your VP to take her overworked behind back to her former employer, where my work quality was never in doubt.”
With a curt nod, she pivoted on her red-bottomed patent leather pumps and walked toward his office door. Then, as an afterthought, she glanced over her shoulder and with her full lips curved into a humorless smirk she let the other shoe drop.
“Now that I think of it, Arabella and I will be visiting Nona Santino tonight for some well-deserved granddaughter-and-grandmother time. I have a feeling we will be out rather late. I suggest you call Bill or Jonas if you desire company this evening. Unless, of course, you question my capabilities as Bella’s mother also, then by all means, let me know what is in my best interest.”
Hearing Max’s chair roll back and hit the wall behind it, Fi took a step back in surprise. Keeping the door open, she stood her ground as Max rounded the corner of the desk, closing the gap between them in two powerful strides.
“Ba
by… stop ... you’re making this into something it’s not. Stop over-reacting and be sensible. I’m looking out for you. No need to be disrespectful…especially at work. People can hear you.” He said his harsh whisper. “Think about how we’ll look.”
Fiona tilted her head for a moment and smiled a smile that had absolutely nothing to do with pleasure and everything to do with trouble.
“You think our employees don’t know we’re fighting? You think I’m embarrassing US! You undermined your VP and wife to her own director and I’m embarrassing us? I’ll show you shame, Max.”
Fiona swung Max’s office door wide and turned to survey the entire square footage of their offices. Locating a chair, she kicked off her heels and slid it up to the nearest desk. Stepping on the chair, and then on the desk, she clapped her hands a few times before yelling out over the floor.
“Attention everyone, I’d like to inform each of you that your impervious CEO and I, your illustrious Marketing VP, are fighting like a normal married couple. If you feel the need to listen at the door or take notes, you are free to do so. You might learn a few expletives you’ve never heard before. He apparently thinks I embarrass us and overreact in regards to defending my exemplary reputation, well he can…oof!”
Fiona was suddenly staring at the back of her husband’s blue dress shirt and clutching his leather belt for balance. He’d swiftly hefted her weight over his shoulder and was escorting her shoe-less body down the aisle toward her office. Fiona swore she heard a chorus of dreamy sighs as she passed the kitchenette, and the gaggle of assistants stuck their heads out to witness Max give her skirt-covered bottom a firm swat.
His fierce whisper was heard by only her as he faced her office door.
“Say one more word Fi and you’ll be blushing and red-assed in front of dozens of employees and I won’t be the least bit bothered by it. You want to test me?”
He jostled her just a bit to emphasize his point, and Fiona yelped before smacking his round ass firmly.
“Maxwell, put me down. Now! I’ll behave… I promise. I promise.”
“Good.”
Lowering her gently to the ground, Fiona felt her body slide slowly down his as he held her hips close to his groin. With her back to dozens of staring, open-mouthed employees, Fiona hid her face in Max’s shoulder as he looked out on the floor. She listened to her husband tell the entire office to please forgive the distraction; he hoped they enjoyed the holiday gifts, and finally that they could get back to work without further outbursts. He was like a dark lion, laying low his pride. She liked that he spoke with authority and was able to put some bass in his voice, even if it was wrapped up in a respectful request. Being so close to his chest she could feel the vibration to her core. She was a sucker for dominant tendencies…in private but that preference stopped at the office for her. It was fine for her love life but making business decisions regarding her without her knowledge or consent seemed overbearing even for Max’s singular ways. Have a tantrum probably wasn’t the best way to handle it but she was livid, and Max had never pulled a stunt like that before.
She spent a moment wavering over apologizing for going over the top back at Max’s office or going into her office and slamming the door. Max answered that quandary when he whispered down in her ear.
“Get in the office, stop being a diva and accept what I’ve done. It’s for your own good, and the matter has been settled. I love you.”
Catching his gaze in hers, she reached up and lovingly cupped his strong jaw in her palm. Pulling his face close to hers, she whispered into his ear.
“Oh, Maxwell, dearest husband, you know I love you too but today you can kiss my whole, entire ass.”
Stepping around his body Fiona entered her office, turned to the enthralled masses observing from the office floor, smiled serenely and softly shut her door with a dignified click.
****
Back in his office, Max had sincerely thought his plan was sound. More free time, a less stressful workload, and, more importantly, making his queen available for his rather extravagant Christmas surprise. He’d had no idea she would take it as a personal attack on her character.
He slammed his hand on his desk and swung around in his office chair, so he was facing the Boston skyline. He had a few more days until he was supposed to spring his surprise on her, but until then he had to be hush-hush, even if it meant being the focus of her ire for forty-eight hours.
When one plans a present for eleven months, it’s worth a few takeout dinners and snide remarks to get to the end game. He was nothing if not a focused individual. He could do this.
Her expression would be priceless.
Last Tuesday
You Still Get Cookies and Cream. I’m Mad, Not Crazy.
Honestly, Fiona thought Max would break by the end of Monday and either explain his true motives or at least tell her she was taking this too far but he didn’t. His demeanor felt strained, like a dam about to break. He was always in her peripheral vision, either at home or in the office, but didn’t speak directly to her unless it was about Bella or sex. That was the one thing they agreed to before they married; to never deny the other that chance to bond and reconnect. Even if WWIII was going on outside the bedroom walls, inside those walls was where they reaffirmed that bond to stay together, no matter what.
When they left the confines of IWorks, they again became just Fiona and Maxwell, the couple, and Fiona was despairing that her Christmas with her family would be tainted by some work drama. But she knew that if she accepted this sort of heavy-handed tactic from her boss, be it her husband or not, she would lose the professional respect she had worked almost two decades to achieve.
Even with all her pro-woman rhetoric, she couldn’t help also sticking it to Maxwell on a purely male/female level. He’d always loved her long, curvy legs and luscious ass. At five feet nine, she was taller than average, and with her normal sky-high heels she regularly towered over her male counterparts. For Maxwell, she was the perfect height—he joked that with her heels on he could kiss her lips and in bare feet he could kiss her forehead. To complement her shoe fetish, he had taken to buying her garters and silk thigh-highs; expensive, elaborate, almost ostentatious thigh-highs that ranged from simple black basket-weave patterns to rhinestone-covered prizes that were art in their own right.
Never had she worn the most flamboyant stockings until today. She had worn her winter-white wool suit with her white Swarovski-crystal-studded thigh-highs and white suede booties with bows. With her short, natural curls tucked back with a white suede headband, she knew she was doing a mean impersonation of a voluptuous snow bunny, and her confidence was sky-high.
Fighting with a husband with a high sex drive meant two things. You reveled in the animalistic fucking that kept each other satisfied, and you reveled in the mind-blowing make-up sex that was sure to follow any conflict. Last night was an example of her and Max having “disagreement sex.”
Bella was put to bed after an extended visit that evening with Nona, and Fiona was in their en-suite bathroom under a hot, soothing shower after a highly stressful day. The frameless glass shower door curved outward, giving her a clear view of the entire bathroom, including the doorway. There stood Maxwell, filling the doorway in quiet observation, studying her as she washed her breasts and shoulders before slipping her wet, soapy fingers between her softly rounded thighs.
She knew from previous experience that he liked to watch, and she liked being watched. She could feel her pussy clench in response to her discovery of him standing there like a predatory specter. She made a show of plucking her nipples and letting water pool between her heavy breasts before releasing them and watching droplets of hot water fall from their peaks. She picked up her loofah and squirted a dollop of lavender-scented soap on it.
Turning her back on Max, she bent at the waist and let the loofah glide between her thighs and down her legs to her pedicured toes. She straightened and raised each arm above her head, washing under her arms and
over her collarbones. Turning to face her mountain of a husband, she raised the soapy loofah over her head and let the suds fall in a swirled pattern down her arms, over her large, darkly hued nipples, and over her rounded stomach. After eyeing him with more than a little defiance, she backed up into the waterfall spray and let it rinse away the fragrant bubbles.
After stepping out of her shower, Fiona grabbed a fluffy white towel and let it hang from her fingertips in Max’s direction. Silently taking the towel, he held it wide, enveloping her in the soft cotton. Gently drying her lavender-scented curves, he spent extra time drying the hills and valleys of her hips and plump asscheeks.
He rose abruptly, running his fingers up her spine. As he stood behind her, his furred chest touched her back, giving off a tangible heat that had nothing to do with the shower steam. He brought the towel around to her front, gently drying the underside of her highly sensitized breasts, teasing each pert nipple mercilessly with the rough cotton. When he finally made a path down her stomach to her now-dripping channel, he stopped. Dipping his fingers into her pussy, he scooped her cream onto his fingers and brought it to his lips to suck the valuable juices from his hand.
“That’s not just water from the shower, beautiful. What do we not do when this happens?” he asked in a husky whisper that caressed her ear.
“Waste it,” answered Fiona, meeting Max’s intense stare in the mirror.
“That’s my good girl. Bend over and grab the sink and don’t let go.”
Fiona felt Max place a large hand firmly in the center of her back and hold her down while he traced her spine with his tongue, placing wet, hungry kisses in the small of her back. Groaning, Max bit the dramatic, heart-shaped swells of her ass.