Overtime

by Roxie Noir

  Valerie took another swallow and looked out his office window, the lights outside beginning to swim just a little. This stuff went to her head so fast, and Valerie didn’t drink often, last weekend notwithstanding. Feeling the need to do something with her hands, she took two more small sips, realized that the glass was nearing empty.

  I just drank twenty dollars’ worth of scotch, she thought.

  “This view is incredible,” she said.

  “We moved in here about twenty years ago,” Jasper said. He spun in his chair and looked out the window with her. “The first five years we were in a floor-level office near Times Square. It was the early nineties and that was a terrible neighborhood at the time, but we got a couple big contracts and this opened up. Hard to convince clients that you’re the right person for the job from a basement next to a butcher who’s always yelling in Russian.” He sipped. “You were probably just a child when we moved in here.”

  Valerie nervously sipped down the last of her scotch, and as if he could hear the emptiness in her glass, Jasper swiveled around. “Come get a refresher,” he said.

  “I’m fine,” Valerie said. “I’ve got to walk to the subway and everything, I shouldn’t have any more.”

  “Use the car service,” he said.

  “Oh, no, I’ll be fine,” she said.

  There’s a car service? She thought.

  “I insist. Now come over here.”

  Valerie obeyed, rising to her feet, walking to his desk, holding out her glass.

  Jasper put one hand around her wrist to steady her hand, poured another two fingers of scotch. He put the bottle down, her wrist still in his hand, ran one thumb over the back of her hand. Then he let her go.

  Valerie’s heart hammered. Her palms began to sweat.

  Was that...? Did he just...?

  There was the leonine look again, as he leaned back in his office chair, still watching her, taking his own glass to his lips in one graceful motion. Valerie suddenly felt all wrong in her body, all elbows and knees, unsure where to look or put her hands.

  Jasper took his drink in his other hand, stretched out his left to pat the top of his desk.

  “No one’s watching,” he said.

  The scotch floated through Valerie’s head, made her whole body feel warmer. You should go home, the wise part of her brain thought, the part almost entirely disconnected and floating up to the ceiling, away from her body. Something is about to happen, and you will definitely regret it tomorrow when you’re not drunk anymore.

  But he’s really hot, and apparently not gay, the unwise part of her thought.

  Jasper looked at her, waiting. It was simple, really: she could hop on the desk or she could leave.

  Valerie planted on hand on the smooth surface of the desk and pushed herself up onto it, feet dangling down. She had a vague feeling that she should maintain her dignity, keep her back straight, her knees together.

  Jasper smiled.

  Valerie took another sip and looked out the window. Jasper stood, drained the last sip in his glass.

  He walked over to stand in front of her.

  “Can you keep a secret?” he asked. He put one finger under her chin, tilting her head up.

  Valerie’s mouth went dry and she felt something stirring between her legs.

  “Of course,” she whispered.

  He took the whisky out of her hand and placed it on another table, away from the desk. His glass and the bottle were somewhere else as well, she realized. She hadn’t even noticed him move them.

  He moved his fingertip down her body, tracing slowly down her throat to her collarbone, down the row of buttons on her blouse, between her breasts, over the gully of her bellybutton and the waistband of her skirt, biting into her stomach. He put both hands on her knees and pushed them open, slowly.

  Valerie began to pull her skirt up, letting her legs free.

  “No,” he said. “Lean back on your hands and stay perfectly still.”

  Hands still on her skirt, Valerie looked up at him, surprised at the tone his voice had taken.

  “I just—“

  “Still.”

  They looked at each other for a long moment, and Valerie could feel her heart beating through her entire body. Then, slowly, she put her hands behind her, leaning back on them.

  Jasper pried her legs open, the fabric pressing into the flesh of her thighs, constricting her until the skirt suddenly gave way, tearing up the slit in the back and her legs went wide, the skirt folding up on itself nearly to her crotch. Valerie gasped. A tingle flooded through her entire body, blood rushing down to her cunt, suddenly only separated from Jasper by a thin layer of cotton.

  His hands moved up her bare thighs, squeezing and stroking her flesh. Valerie was positive she was trembling, but she didn’t want Jasper, staring intently into her eyes as he moved his hands, to know.

  You can still take it back, she thought. You can take it back until he fucks you. If you just leave now this will have never happened.

  Jasper’s hand reached the top of her thigh, the soft crease where her vulva met her leg, and ran a single fingertip along the edge of her underwear’s fabric.

  Valerie closed her eyes and let out a little sigh, leaning back on her hands, legs wide open. She felt totally vulnerable to this man who had both her body and her job firmly in his hands; this man who, if he wanted, could fuck her and then fire her.

  She’d never been more turned on.

  Her cunt throbbed. She was sure Jasper could feel it through the fabric of her underwear, as his fingers felt around the edges of it. He stroked over her lips, over her clitoris itself and Valerie made another soft noise, turned her head to the side.

  Valerie wished she’d worn sexier underwear that day, instead of the thin cotton thong she’d tossed on under her tight skirt.

  With both index fingers, Jasper lightly touched the edges of the fabric from her lips up around to the crease of her thighs, back down, and when he could see that Valerie was in a state, he took the thong in both hands and pulled.

  She opened her eyes at the sudden violence, looking down, wondering what he was doing, and then she heard the fabric tear, felt her underwear go loose around her hips. He tugged again and the other leg snapped and then she wasn’t wearing it at all anymore.

  Valerie swallowed, her cheeks hot. She hadn’t bothered with any pubic maintenance in weeks, not since Ethan had broken up with her. What for? She wasn’t getting any action, may as well go full-bush. Jasper ran his fingers through her fur, tracing soft little rows over her mound, inching her skirt ever higher so it was almost around her waist.

  He found her clit with a finger and thumb. Pinching it, Valerie almost screamed at that line between pleasure and pain, white fading in around the corners of her vision. She could see the buttons on her blouse straining as she gasped for breath, and then, after what seemed an eternity, his moved his fingers. Her clit throbbed where he’d been.

  As he moved his fingers lower, to her entrance, he leaned over her, putting his left hand on top of her right, putting weight on it, holding it down where she leaned back on the desk. She felt his weight against the bones in her hand, pressing them into the shiny, dark wood, just as his fingers pushed their way into her cunt.

  Valerie’s eyes slid closed and she moaned, despite herself. You’ve really fucked things up now, said the voice in her head, but she didn’t listen. Those fingers felt too good as they curled around in her wetness, pressing themselves against the sensitive spots inside her. She hadn’t known how badly she’d wanted them until now, but they felt perfect.

  His hand tightened around her wrist, his weight still leaning her bones into the desk. A pang shot up her arm from the pressure, as his thumb found her clit and began stroking it, back and forth, in perfect time with his fingers. Valerie made a high-pitched noise, somewhere between a moan and a sigh, and her eyes fluttered open again. Jasper was inches away, his pupils wide in the dim light, the blue around them almost iridescent. The
city lights shone off his silver hair and he was watching her, intently, as though there were nothing else in the room or the world.

  In her cunt, his fingers became more forceful, his thumb mashing her clit against her body, as though he were trying to squeeze her from the inside out, fingers against thumb. Valerie panted, maintaining eye contact, sensing that it was what Jasper wanted and, in that moment, wanting nothing more herself than to please him.

  His hand tightened again around her wrist and she could feel her tendons rubbing together; in her cunt he squeezed hard and then Valerie felt him draw the orgasm out of her, coaxing, watching, his leonine face inches from her own as she kept her eyes open, crying out despite herself. She felt as though molten lava had pooled in her cunt and was setting her on fire, his fingers so rough the sensation was somewhere south of pleasure, toward pain.

  Even after she’d come, he didn’t stop for several strokes, making her body jerk in response each time. When he withdrew his fingers he reached for a box of tissues that was on a side table, next to the whiskey.

  Valerie looked at the setup and suddenly wondered how many times he’d done this. He seemed to have a pattern down: offer a drink, get a girl on a table, wipe off with the kleenex sitting right there.

  She sat up, rubbing her wrist where he’d grabbed it. She hoped it wouldn’t bruise. She bruised easily. His hardness was almost totally visible through his gray slacks, a long curve leading from his legs up toward his belly.

  Valerie hopped down from the desk, her ruined panties pooling around her ankles. Jasper’s back was to her now and she pulled her torn skirt down, awkwardly, realizing the gravity of what they’d done now that it was over.

  He turned to her, showing her his cock through his pants, genteelly wiping down his fingers.

  “I’ll call you a car,” he said.

  Valerie looked down at his clear interest, looked back up at his face. “That’s it?” she said.

  Jasper tossed the tissue into a waste basket and sat back in his big leather chair. He looked away from her, not meeting her eyes.

  “I shouldn’t have done that,” he said.

  Valerie didn’t move.

  “Please,” he said, still averting his eyes from her.

  She stared at him for a few more seconds, then picked up her things. “Don’t worry about the car,” she said. “I’ll take the subway.”

  He said something behind her that she didn’t hear, as she took her phone and jacket from her desk and went to the elevator. Her back was to the office door so she couldn’t see if he went after her, and she got into the elevator without looking back. Down the twenty-three floors to the breezy Manhattan night, through the revolving doors and onto the sidewalk, in the direction of the subway.

  A big, black car pulled up next to her, and a man in a hat jumped out.

  “Miss Bridge?” he shouted after her. Valerie stopped and looked at him.

  “Car service, Miss,” the man said again.

  A breeze wafted down the street and lifted part of her torn skirt. She slapped a hand to her ass to keep herself covered. She was angry and confused and still more than a little drunk, but as the man walked around the car to open the door for her, she realized there was no reason she shouldn’t take the car. She didn’t want to wear this skirt on the subway, she didn’t want the wind showing her ass to her whole neighborhood.

  Valerie got in the car. She gave the driver her address, and if it was a neighborhood he didn’t drive to often, he didn’t say anything about it. He didn’t say anything at all: didn’t ask why she was leaving alone with a torn pencil skirt at eight-thirty on a Friday night, didn’t ask why Mr. Declan had ordered her a car.

  Chapter Four

  Valerie went straight to bed when she got home, still too drunk and overwhelmed to deal with what had just happened. When she woke up Saturday, she felt fine for about thirty seconds. And then, she remembered what had happened.

  At least it’s the weekend, she thought.

  Then she thought, I should probably just quit. It’ll always be weird. I was doing really well, though.

  And, right before she got out of bed, she thought: Why can’t I find a boyfriend who’ll fuck me like that?

  Valerie stumbled to her bathroom, peed, wiped the rest of her makeup off. She had coffee and Lucky Charms, watched some trash TV, put together a list of her errands for the weekend. She got out the emergency sewing kit her mom had given her, compared it with the enormous tear in her skirt, and she decided there was no way she could salvage it. It had torn almost all the way up the seam, past the seat of the skirt and almost to the waistband. Valerie was no seamstress, but it didn’t look like something anyone would be able to save, much less her with one needle and about three feet of red yarn. She sighed and tossed it into her kitchen trash can, took another sip of her coffee.

  Had the sex been worth ruining a $40 skirt over?

  Maybe. Ethan had sure never fucked her like that. It had been so intense, and she’d felt so under Jasper’s power. Valerie’s head swirled. She didn’t think she was the kind of girl who’d just submit to her boss like that, but then she had.

  Worse, it was by far the best sex of her life, and he hadn’t even used his dick.

  She wished again that he’d let her take the skirt off, though. It was her favorite, the one she’d splurged on when she found out she got the job a couple of months ago.

  There was a knock on her door. Valerie looked at the clock: eleven in the morning. She wasn’t expecting anyone. Through the peephole, she could see a young man in a bike helmet and some kind of uniform. Strange. She opened the door.

  “Are you Valerie Bridge?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she said, pulling her robe tighter around her. The bike delivery man didn’t seem to notice.

  “Package,” he said. “Sign here.” He thrust a clipboard with a notepad on it at her, then handed her a box wrapped in plain brown paper with her name and address on it.

  “Thanks,” she said. He walked back toward her building’s stairs and she shook the package to see what it was. She never got things bike-delivered to her, but she had a premonition of who’d sent it.

  Inside, she tossed the package onto her mattress on the floor and looked at it for a moment. Then, she sat down and pulled the paper off. Inside was a box from Saks Fifth Avenue. Valerie had only ever been to the sale rack there.

  Slowly, she opened the box and removed the layer of tissue paper. Carefully arranged on top were several black thongs, and she picked them up with two fingers as if they were butterflies. Beneath them was a red skirt—no, three red skirts.

  Valerie opened the card.

  I wasn’t sure what size you wore, so I got you a selection.

  Jasper

  P.S. You said you could keep a secret.

  The tag on the first skirt said $250. Valerie dropped it back onto the bed, afraid to touch something that cost more than her monthly food budget. Each thong had been $25. She stood, not quite sure what to do, or how to interpret Jasper’s note: was this a game? A one-time thing?

  If she went to work on Monday, would it happen again? Worse, how would she feel if it didn’t?

  Valerie pulled on jeans, washed her face, and left her little apartment to run errands. She’d decide about going to work Monday later.

  Chapter Five

  Valerie spent the weekend in a blur: running errands around Brooklyn, determinedly hitting every salvage and thrift store she knew of, determined to find herself a bed frame for a reasonable price. Saturday night she went out with Adrienne and spent too much on fancy burgers and craft beer; afterwards they went to a party at an artist’s loft that Adrienne’s other friend knew from college. It wasn’t quite Valerie’s scene, but she drank too much cheap beer and danced her ass off anyway—anything to keep her mind off of the nicely wrapped package from Saks that was sitting in her apartment, nearly untouched.

  Monday morning, Valerie’s alarm went off at 6 a.m., just like every weekday. Usually
she was pretty good about getting up: she’d lie around for a few minutes, enjoy lazing around a bit, but she kind of liked mornings. Today, though, she stayed in bed for twenty minutes, then thirty, then forty-five, ensuring that she had less and less time to get ready. Still, she didn’t get up.

  Things were bound to get weird. Sex with your boss—even just getting finger banged by your boss—was definitely on the don’t list. Maybe she just shouldn’t show up. Then she’d never have to deal with it, though she’d have to deal with the near-impossibility of getting another decent job before her rent was due. She squeezed her eyes shut and wished she hadn’t let Mr. Declan finger bang her.

  The alarm shrieked again and Valerie hit it, laid in bed for another ten seconds, and then started to get up. At least the sex had been good sex, she told herself, and she liked the job. The money was decent, especially for her first position out of college, and she liked working there. Valerie glanced at the clock, suddenly realized she only had twenty minutes to get ready, and flew into action. Black pants, gray shirt, hair in a bun, one coat of mascara. She grabbed a granola bar from the cupboard, tossed on flip-flops for her train ride and few out the door, mentally chanting shit shit shit the whole time.

  She got to her desk only three minutes late, though her boss, the incredibly punctual Jasper Declan, was already in his office. Three minutes wasn’t a big deal, she thought. Three minutes was barely missing one train and having to take the next; three minutes was the train getting stuck underground for no reason.

  She reached into her bag for her heels and realized, with horror, that in her rush she’d forgotten to bring them with her. They were still sitting in the bottom of her Ikea wardrobe, right where she’d put them the last time she took them off. Her ugly black Old Navy flip flops were the only footwear she had that day. Maybe she could run out at lunchtime, she thought, and get better shoes—not that another pair of shoes was in her budget right now—and until then she’d try to stay sitting at her desk, feet invisible as much as possible.