Jane O'Reilly - Indecent...Desires

The scene is still playing out in my mind as I make my way into work the next morning. I like to arrive twenty minutes earlier than everyone else, so I can drink coffee and peruse the stationery cupboard and generally enjoy the space and the new carpet smell. I like to be prepared when the rest of the staff walk in. Being late is my worst nightmare.

But this morning I’m wired, unable to settle, and the coffee only makes me feel worse. I didn’t sleep well and none of my usual remedies worked. All I could think about was the man on the other side of the road. I wondered what he thinks when he reads my little notes, who he thinks is sending them, why he follows them.

When I’d done with those thoughts, when I’d chased them round in circles for hours and got nowhere, I started to think about what I could do to push him further. What I could make him do next. I have so many ideas, so many shocking, filthy ideas. Just when I think I’ve reached my limit, my brain conjures up some new scenario. Take the one that I wrote on the note I slipped through his letterbox this morning, which told him to film tonight’s session and upload it onto the internet.

The problem with all this is that it leaves me incredibly aroused, which isn’t a good state to be in at work. I cannot think straight with this hot, furious urge, my whole body so tense that I feel like I might explode if anyone comes near me. I check the clock that hangs on the wall behind my desk. I’ve got twenty minutes before anyone else arrives. It’s enough. I lock my handbag in my bottom drawer, and then I quietly slip away to the loo. The stalls are empty, the whole place filled with the lingering scent of lemon cleaner, and it’s probably the most disgusting place in the world for what I am about to do, but I have to. I can’t stand it any longer. I lock myself in a cubicle, take a deep breath. One last chance to talk myself down from this. But I can’t, I can’t.

Time is of the essence now. I’ve got to hurry. I’ve worked so hard to build up my reputation here, sensible Meredith, reliable Meredith, Meredith who can handle anything we throw at her. Meredith, who masturbates in the toilets because she’s too desperate to wait and too uptight to do it at home. Maybe my ex-husband was right. Maybe there is something wrong with me.

There’s definitely something wrong with me, I think, as I shove a hand deep into my bra and pinch my nipple tightly between finger and thumb. The relief I feel is palpable, though it fades into insignificance compared with what I feel when I push a hand into my underwear and stroke myself through the lace. I dig my feet into the floor and finger myself in earnest. My clit is swollen and when I slide my fingers into my slit, I find plenty of slippery wetness. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to take my time over this, to savour it, but my ex always said that I took too long. He also said that I wanted it too much, that it wasn’t normal for a woman to want it that much, which is why I try so hard to resist.

But I’ve been failing more and more, recently. Oh, my intentions are good. But I don’t seem to be able to hold onto them, not when I’ve spent all night dreaming of the man across the road, when the ache is so severe that I can hardly function.

Focus, Meredith. Focus. I squeeze my eyes tightly shut and think only about the ache between my thighs, about how much better I will feel when that ache is gone. I rub myself harder, even though it makes my wrist ache. I bite into my bottom lip as I feel my clit swell, as I think about the man over the road and the show he puts on for me. I wonder what he would do if he knew that he’s becoming an addiction I don’t know how to control.

But I must control it. I’m thirty-four and I want a husband and a baby and I am not going to get either this way. But oh, that beautiful hard stomach and that cut of muscle right above his hip bones, and that gorgeous thick cock. I bite down on my lip harder as I feel the rush of orgasm move through me, the explosive way my muscles contract and release, wave after wave of it, almost as if my body is no longer under my control and I am just a passenger along for the ride.

I wait for it to subside, but I don’t wait too long. A courtesy flush and I slip out of the cubicle and then wash my hands, trying to wash away the remnants of my dirty behaviour. The soap is creamy and smells of roses and it makes my hands feel dry, but at least they’re clean. My face is a bigger problem, though. The flush in my cheeks is fading and thanks to a generous application of hairspray my hair is still intact, but there’s nothing make-up can do for shame, and I’ve got a thick layer of it all over me. I rip my gaze away from the mirror and head back to my desk. There’s no point standing there looking at my guilty face. I can’t stare it away.

My desk is exactly as I left it, only it isn’t. Because there is a man standing in front of it, his back to me. I take in hair the colour of milk chocolate and the shoulders and lean waist of a man in his early twenties. He’s wearing a close-fitting knit jumper, with a messenger bag slung across his body so that it rests against his bum.

‘Yes?’ I say. ‘Can I help you with something?’ I use my work voice, the one my ex-husband used to call my bossy voice, the one he’d parrot back at me when I got too loud, or too opinionated. I try not to use it, I do, but sometimes it just slips out, and I guess now is one of those times.

‘That depends,’ he says, as he turns around. He’s got his hands tucked in his pockets, insolently casual, and some sort of identity pass slung around his neck. His jumper is baby-blue, but his eyes are dark and his mouth makes me stumble.

It’s you. I don’t know how I keep those words in. Any minute now they’re going to burst out of me and he’s going to ask what I mean, and I’m going to have to think of an answer, preferably one that doesn’t include any references to the fact that I’ve been secretly watching him masturbate on an almost daily basis for the past month. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘I’m here to overhaul your computer system,’ he says calmly. ‘I’m Lucas. Lucas Brady.’

‘Of course you are,’ I say faintly, as I move behind my desk and take my seat. I set my hands to my keyboard, pretending that I’m in control of them.

‘It usually works better if you turn it on first,’ he says. And then he smiles at me, and I swear something inside me explodes. When it hits my face in the form of a red hot blush, I realise what it is. But I am Meredith the Unflappable, so I stiffly turn on my computer and offer him coffee and biscotti as I wait for it to boot up.

He accepts politely, even though I was hoping he wouldn’t. ‘You knew I was coming, right?’ he asks, as I slide the white cup and saucer in his direction, together with the sachets of brown sugar and the cream.

No. Not you . ‘Absolutely,’ I say. I even manage to sound sincere.

‘Good,’ he says. And then there’s a pause while he doctors his coffee – two sugars, I notice – and then he says ‘Have we met?’

‘No,’ I say instantly. ‘No, I don’t think so. I’m sure I’d remember if we had.’

‘Hmm,’ he says, and that’s when I notice the sparkle in his eyes. They’re dark, very dark, but there’s a fire in them, a wickedness that makes me wonder, just for a second, if he somehow knows that I’m the person who has been sending him naughty notes.

But I can’t very well ask him. Fortunately, my computer has booted up, so I log into the system and check through the diary for today, and there he is, Lucas Brady. He’s scheduled to be here every day for the next two weeks.

Two weeks. Every day for two weeks. I don’t know if I can cope with that.