F*CKING AWKWARD HOLIDAYS: 25 Short Stories of Awkward Holiday Encounters

by Plendl, Taryn

  “What? Why?” I asked stalling, and continuing to pat my shirt, which now had tiny pieces of wet napkin stuck to it.

  “I don’t know. She’s pissy about something today,” she replied, popping her head up over the flimsy wall.

  “Just today?” I laughed. When was there ever a day where our editor-in-chief wasn’t full of piss and vinegar?

  “What the hell is that all over you?” she asked, walking into my cubicle and pointing directly at my chest.

  “That was my breakfast,” I answered, standing and trying my best to wipe my shirt down and look somewhat presentable to walk into my boss’s office.

  “Maybe you should switch shirts with me,” she offered, making me burst out in bitter laughter.

  “I think walking into her office with a shirt three sizes too small might make things worse, no?” I said, dryly. What was it with skinny girls thinking anyone should be able to squeeze into their clothes?

  “Just don’t look straight into her eyes…” she teased back.

  “Knock, knock,” a man’s voice called out. Julia and I both turned around to see Zeke, a fellow writer, who looked to be wearing a belt with a large wooden stick jutting out from the center of it. On the very tip of the stick, hung a green plant with little red berries all over it, swinging freely back and forth. He flinched and scrunched up his noise when he saw me, “Uh, Jane? Gail wants to see you.”

  “Yeah, I’ve heard,” I said, turning down the screen of my computer. There was no way in hell I was walking out of this cubicle with my work displayed out in the open; trustworthy was not a word in Zeke’s vocabulary.

  When I stood up, there was barely any room left in the small space that was my so-called workstation. The three of us were all inside the tiny enclosure and Zeke was smirking, leaning crotch first under that stupid looking… “Ew, is that mistletoe?” I asked, appalled.

  “Fuck yeah, it is. Hey Julia, you wanna kiss me under the mistletoe?” he asked, pointing to his crotch, chuckling.

  “Like you have anything there to kiss,” Julia laughed, shoving him out of the small space.

  “You’re disgusting,” I said, narrowing my eyes at him.

  “You’re just jealous I didn’t ask you,” he smirked.

  “Zeke, the only time I would ever even think of your invisible dick and diseased nutsack is if I wanted to use it for a punching bag.”

  “You’re so weird,” he said, backing away with his hands up. “Hey Jule, I gotta joke for you,” he said following Julia into her cubicle. “How do you know when there’s a snowman in your bed?”

  “Good luck, Jane,” Julia called over the wall, and then laughed at whatever the answer was to Zeke’s joke.

  “Right, sure,” I said softly, as I flattened down my clothes and dragged myself into the hallway.

  With each step I took, my stomach rolled with a strange unwanted dread. I knew this impromptu meeting wasn’t going to be about work. I was one of the best writers at the magazine. It was more likely to be about the sullen change in my attitude in the office lately. Well, ever since the whole “One Night Stand” article I’d written a few weeks ago.

  Taking a deep breath, I knocked softly on Gail’s open door and stepped inside. “Julia said you wanted to see me?” I asked, clearing my throat.

  Gail’s large bird eyes widened dramatically as they roamed from my toes to somewhere two inches above my head. I sighed quietly at her idiotic expression. I mean; I got it. I understood what it must look like. I was in oversized sweatpants and a tee that had shit-colored coffee stains where my nipples should be, and a pair of ripped Converse that I’ve owned since freshman year of high school. There was a well-chewed pencil sticking straight out of my messy bun, and when I say messy bun, I mean a giant knot of unwashed and uncombed hair on the top of my head. There was some sort of serious dreadlock thing happening up there.

  Gail clutched her chest and gasped theatrically, as if she were going for an academy award. “What is that? What happened? Did someone die? Did you go through a bad breakup or something?”

  “No, my love life is in shambles, and the last time I had a date, it was a Tinder special that was tweeted live, remember?” I snapped. It was the truth, too. The last article I wrote was about a one-night stand Gail made me tweet live for all my followers. Even though it was the top-read article of all-time for the magazine, and I was trending for at least two weeks, it was the most humiliating and awkward situation I’d ever put myself through.

  It still gave me nightmares.

  “What did you want?” I asked, leaning my back against the frame of her door.

  “Your hair brushed. At the very least,” she bit, gesturing with her hands for me to sit down in one of the chairs that faced her desk.

  Ungraciously, I trudged to the seat and slumped into it like a sulky teenager.

  “You haven't responded to the invitation to our annual costume ball,” she said directly to the coffee stain on my shirt with a curl of her lip.

  “No I haven't,” I said, defiantly folding my hands across my chest.

  “Well, you’re going,” she snarled, wrinkling her nose.

  “I don't think that's—”

  “You are going,” she interrupted, leaning forward and squinting her bird eyes at me.

  “I really don't—”

  “Yes, you don’t, but you will,” she snapped, slapping her palm over her desk. “My holiday extravaganzas are simply the best. And you’ll forget all about your failed Twitter interlude.”

  “No way. I’m not going. And I won’t be forgetting the most embarrassing night of my life any time soon.”

  “What you need is to do more out of the box stuff, Jane. You lack personality and fun.” She clapped her hands excitedly and nodded, “Trust me. This is coming from someone who has taken more than a few proverbial dips in the company pool. My costume parties are perfect for tapping workplace ass and no one will ever know. Your Twitter boy will be quickly forgotten. Zeke? Gavin? Oh my, Gavin has the biggest, thickest—”

  “Ew! No, no no! Gail, stop. I don’t want to go. You can’t make me go.”

  “Who pays your salary, darling?” she growled, viciously.

  I felt my face heat. It must have been bright red. Her eyes seemed to soften a tinge, and she tried her best for one of her fake smiles. “Look, Jane, dear. I know you’ve been distraught since the whole Twitter fiasco.”

  “Oh really, do you? How could you tell?” I asked in a sharp tone.

  “Oh darling, you learn a lot about someone when you read through their personal emails,” she said, winking at me.

  What?

  “You need to look at the bright side of this little snafu,” she smiled.

  “Oh yeah, what’s that?” I asked, dryly.

  “Look at all the requests for dates you received on Twitter alone,” she replied.

  “Ha. You would call them dates,” I said, rubbing my brow to ward off the freight train of a headache I felt coming on.

  “Okay, so hookups. You say tomato I say—”

  “Please stop,” I sighed.

  “If I was your age…How old are you again, thirty-six?”

  “Twenty-seven!” I snarled as heat flushed across my chest.

  “Really?” she asked, lifting a single eyebrow.

  “Yes,” I huffed, angrily.

  “My God, if I were twenty-seven again, then I’d rent out an entire football team and live tweet the fuck out of all the debauchery I’d have done to me.” She looked off into the distance behind me as if she was seeing the before said debauchery right before her eyes. “Some of those perky cheerleaders too…” she trailed off. “Definitely one of those animal mascots.”

  “Did you like, see some inappropriate sexual content at a young age with some strange uncle who smells like broccoli that warped your entire view on the reality of sex?” I asked.

  “Oh Jane, can it be that you are still upset with me about putting you on that article instead of Zeke?” she asked i
n a sing-songy voice. I never wanted to punch someone so much in my life. “You’re letting it overwhelm you. I mean, just look at you! You’ve been coming to work, walking around looking like a before picture ever since the live feed.”

  “It was his pitch. He was much better suited for that kind of a piece than me!” I huffed, standing up angrily. “Consider my view on this, Gail. To millions of my female readers and followers, who read my column for sexy eye shadow trends or hottest novels to masturbate to, I committed the heinous crime of live posting a date while in possession of a vagina,” I stammered angrily, grabbing the still damp with coffee covered crotch of my sweatpants. “A simple Tinder hookup—something thousands of people do every day. And because the Internet is such a shitty place that would reek of two-week old sour milk if it had a smell, I got coined a harlot for doing it live. I went to college for journalism. I don’t need this—” Before I could really go off on her, a fist wrapping on her door stopped me mid-sentence. I turned to see who was cutting me off from my self-loathing tantrum. And who still uses the word harlot? Me, that’s who.

  “I’m sorry, Gail, am I interrupting something?” a deep sexy voice danced along my skin.

  In one perfectly sculpted hand, he held a stack of photos from the art department and in the other, a water bottle that I was strangely jealous of. His clothes literally hugged his muscles, and his flawlessly chiseled face was the stuff of legends. He was so perfect that you didn’t know where to look first; you wanted to take every inch of him in. And I mean every inch of him. His name: Heath. His occupation: newly hired fucksticle in the advertising department. He made it absolutely impossible for anyone in the vicinity to concentrate when he was around. Even Julia wasn’t immune to whatever panty-melting pheromones he was giving off. I watched her walk headfirst right into a pole last week because of him. Even Gail seemed smitten, sitting behind her desk twirling her hair at him and squirming in her seat.

  “Interrupting? You? Never!” she said, blushing and tucking her white-blonde hair behind her ear. “I believe we were done, right, um Jane, dear?” she said, raising her eyebrows at me.

  I couldn’t remember a damn thing of what the hell we were just talking about as Heath smiled at me.

  Heath smiled at me.

  Then, he winked. At me.

  Something strange and alarming started happening to my knees at that precise point, and all I could think about was how he must look without his shirt on. Or pants. Or if he was shirtless and pantless say in like, my bedroom.

  “Jane? We’re on the same page in regards to the costume ball, correct?” Gail chirped, tapping a pen against her coffee mug and smiling up wistfully in Heath’s direction.

  “Huh? What? No. No, we are not on the same page,” I stammered, almost incoherently.

  “Heath,” she purred, batting her extra long store-bought eyelashes at him, “don’t you agree that Jane should go to the costume ball?” She bit her Botoxed bottom lip to help make the question somehow more enticing to him. God, I despised her and her phoniness. Everything about her was fake; I bet if you turned her upside down and read the tag in the crack of her ass it would say “Made in China.” The woman needed to be slapped with a dick.

  “Yeah, definitely,” he said, turning his gaze on me again. His eyes were the lightest brown, almost amber and mesmerizing. “You have to come. We’ll have a blast.”

  “We will?” I softly asked.

  “Yeah, of course we will. You definitely need to come,” he said, making my mouth water—because just listening to him, I definitely needed to come.

  * * *

  The soft flickering glow of small candles fell across the room and the scent of cinnamon, pine, and other unnamable spices hung in the air. Digital booths were placed in dark corners to take pictures in, cigar tables were set up with fancy drinks, and there was even a booth where thousands of dollar bills flew around for party guests to try and catch.

  I sat at a small table decorated with seasonal debris, surrounded by my office colleagues; none of which were in any way recognizable, dressed in their over the top costumes. Next to me, a woman leaned close to my ear and giggled, “Gail really out did herself this year, huh?” She smelled like cherry lip-gloss and tequila.

  I tried looking into her eyes as her mask of beads twinkled at me, but I had no idea who she might have been. “Yes, she definitely did,” I agreed, beginning to feel a little bit giddy about being in disguise. The reality of it hit me swift and hard. No one knew it was me. In theory, this night could be epic.

  “When Gail said she was picking out everyone’s costume I was a little skeptical, you know?” the woman said, shrugging her massively feathered shoulders. “And keeping it a secret was hard. But I get it now; it’s exciting and mysterious.”

  “And the costumes are gorgeous,” I whispered, looking down at my designer ensemble. I couldn’t even explain what I was supposed to be dressed as, but it was a stunning piece of gothic fashion. Black organza and silk wrapped around my body, making me look sculpted and curvaceous. A tight corset covered my torso decorated with small delicate gears that actually moved. “My costume is probably worth more than my car.”

  A man, dressed in a red tuxedo and a devilish mask pulled out the chair across from me, and greeted us with a familiar baritone voice, “Good evening ladies, you’re both looking stunning tonight.” Through his mask I saw his eyes linger on me; they were the color of fine whiskey.

  Heath. It had to be him. There was no one in the whole of our office building that was shaped like him, and his voice—his voice was sinful and unforgettable.

  My hands shook as I lifted my wine to my lips. The pale fruity liquid sloshed over the rim of my glass, dripping down my fingers and splashing drops across my face. I sat there like an idiot, with my trembling fingers practically convulsing and clutching onto the stem of the glass. Why was it still in my damn hand? The horned devil across from me watched, the corner of his lips lifting into a slow, sexy smile.

  His eyes didn’t look away.

  Just after the first course was cleared from the table, Heath excused himself to use the restroom, leaving his red tuxedo jacket draped over the back of his chair. Waitresses dressed like gypsies danced around with bells on their ankles. They hopped to each guest and placed a small envelope in front of us, beckoning us to read our fortunes. I tore my open, laughing, my wine had already gone straight to my head. My fortune read: “Be brave. Try something you would otherwise never do.”

  Next to me, the woman dressed in feathers kept hers hidden, but after reading it, she gasped loudly and left the table.

  Be brave. Try something you would otherwise never do.

  I took another deep pull from my drink, letting the alcohol fog my insides even more. Something I would otherwise never do—my imagination revved from being eye-fucked from the devil across from me most of the night. Without thinking another clear thought, I flipped over the small card my fortune was written on and pulled out a pen from my purse.

  Satan,

  Meet me in the red photo booth.

  I want to taste how sinful you are.

  XOXO

  I slipped the sexy little note where his fortune sat on his dish waiting for him.

  * * *

  I pressed myself against the inside of the booth when he came in. I gasped loudly as he flattened his palms down on the wall behind me, pushing his hard body into mine. His head leaned into my neck, and his open lips slid wetly against my skin.

  “Oh my God,” I rasped, breathing in his cologne and feeling the heat of his body on mine.

  “No,” he smirked, fumbling with the hem of my dress and tugging it up over my hips, “Wrong guy.” His hand slid between my legs, and his fingers slipped into the lace of my panties, “See the horns?”

  My skin heated, his fingers taunting and teasing circles over my flesh. The small booth became hot, and my skin felt sticky and sexy. I was barely aware of the noises from the party. The glasses and plates clinking, the mur
murs and soft music all dulled into silence, until I could hear nothing, but our heavy gasping breaths and the wet sounds of his fingers dipping inside me. There was no one else around us. My attention was centered on the intense feeling of the Fourth of July celebration inside my panties, and the red ribbed horns twisting from his forehead.

  My hands sought his zipper and yanked open the button of his pants. He swallowed hard when I grasped him in my hand. “Fuck yes,” he hissed.

  “Holy shit, you’re fucking huge,” I gasped in awe. Holy dick of all dicks! I’m going to be walking funny tomorrow. I won the grand prize in the cock lottery!

  He moaned out a sexy, low sound, and his head fell back softly against the wall. “Suck me,” he whispered, pressing a hand down on my shoulder. “Fuck, I’ve wanted this since I first met you.”

  God, I seriously had no idea.

  My knees hit the floor hard, but the only thing I was aware of was how fast my heart was drumming against my chest. I ran my tongue from the base of his cock to his head, and honestly wondered how I was going to get the damn thing into my mouth.

  “Is that too much cock for you?” he chuckled, looking down his nose at me. Shit. I didn’t want him to think I couldn’t handle it. This was only the first time we were together. This was Heath; I had to make him want to come back for more.

  I tilted my head back to take the head of his cock between my lips and heard him take a quick breath in as I slowly took him in deeper. When the tip of his dick hit the back of my throat, I gagged, but kept going until my nose touched his pelvis.

  “Ah, fuck yeah. Holy fuck, that’s it,” he moaned, sliding his fingers into my hair and thrusting farther into my mouth. Moving my head up and down his shaft, I took him far into the back of my throat each time meeting his movements. My jaw ached instantly. My eyes watered, but the way he watched me, and the lust-glazed look in his eyes made me love every filthy second of it.

  Picking up the pace, little by little, I felt his balls tighten, and his breathing accelerate until he was all-out panting and fisting the fabric of my dress tight against my skin.