Jane O'Reilly - Indecent...Desires

‘Would you like to get started?’ I ask him. I’m getting to my feet as I say the words, because I want him out of here. I can’t breathe. I need a moment, possibly a lot more than a moment, to catch my breath and wonder what bizarre twist of fate has brought him into my office.

I find myself staring at his mouth, and then at his body, which is concealed by that baby-blue sweater, and then lower, at his crotch. I suspect that I might actually stare at it for quite a long time, because when I finally realise what I’m doing and plant my gaze back on his face he’s looking at me with an odd expression. ‘How old are you?’ I blurt out.

‘Twenty-four,’ he says.

‘Right,’ I say. I hammer something random into the keyboard. ‘I just needed that for our records.’

‘Sure,’ he says. There’s a tone of disbelief in his voice that I don’t like at all.

I straighten up and glare at him, or more correctly, I glare up at him. He’s a lot taller than I’d realised. A lot taller. Not ridiculously taller, but definitely taller than my ex-husband. I’m wearing heels and he still has a couple of inches on me. It sends a faint frisson of excitement down my spine, a sensual shiver that I do my best to ignore. This is no good. No good at all. ‘Haven’t you got work to do?’ I say sharply, and there’s no disguising the bossy tone.

Lucas stiffens. ‘Yes,’ he says. ‘Ms?’

He said Ms. No one ever says Ms. They all glance at my hand and then give me Miss with a faint pitying sneer. Or they simply opt for Mrs. Another shiver works its way through me.

‘French,’ I say. I straighten my shoulders; dare him to make something of it.

But he doesn’t. Instead, he nods, adjusts the strap of his bag. ‘I’ll get started then,’ he says. ‘And I’ll try not to get under your feet, Ms French.’ He doesn’t move, though, just stands there, watching me.

I sit myself down at my desk and raise an eyebrow, giving him my best haven’t you got things you should be doing look. He waits for a moment, a long moment, and then he picks up his coffee and heads off in the direction of the offices and only at this point does it occur to me that perhaps I should have shown him around. And perhaps I should have got him to sign in. But something about the way he said my name, like it was a dirty word, made me lose my train of thought.

Though perhaps if I had been at my desk when he arrived and not masturbating in the toilets, I would have had more control of things. But given that it’s his fault I was masturbating in the toilets in the first place, perhaps my irritation is justified.

I do not know how I am going to survive two weeks with him hanging around the office. This was not part of the plan. Still, Martin Banks will be in soon, and that is part of the plan. Martin Banks is in his late thirties, appropriately older than me, with an appropriate level of income (I checked) and, as far as I can tell, no inappropriate sensibilities. I also know that he is single and has appropriate ideas about marriage and children. Oh, I know what they say about workplace relationships, but where else am I supposed to meet a man I can vet properly? I don’t want to end up in another disastrous relationship.

Today Martin Banks is going to ask me out to dinner, I’m sure of it. We will go to the Italian on Bridge Street, I will accept dessert but not drink more than two glasses of wine, and he will kiss me firmly but politely at my doorstep. I’ve got it all planned.

Thinking this through, I open my bottom desk drawer, pull out my makeup bag and proceed to fix up my face. A touch more blusher, some powder, a neatening of my lipstick. There. I do not need to worry about twenty four year old exhibitionists. Even if they are in the office at the end of the hall.

I welcome the other staff as they come in, then the first couple of clients. Today is going to be a good day, I can feel it. I refuse to feel the hot ache that persists between my thighs. I refuse to think about Lucas Brady. Only I can’t stop thinking about Lucas Brady. He has been in the office at the end of the hall with the door firmly closed for what seems like an impossibly long time. Perhaps he would like more coffee. Perhaps more biscuits are in order. Perhaps he needs someone to keep him on track.

Before I can talk myself out of it, I pour the coffee and arrange some biscuits nicely on a plate and walk towards that office door. I knock briskly and then I push the door open. ‘I brought you some more coffee,’ I say.

His head jerks up. He’s sat behind the desk, which is black, in keeping with the tidy, modern theme of the office. He’s stripped off the baby-blue jumper, revealing a striped shirt that fits indecently close. It is open at the collar, giving me a casual flash of skin, and I find my heart suddenly pounding, my mouth suddenly dry. I should put the drink and the plate on the desk and leave. I should not linger, or talk. But I do both. ‘Are you making progress?’

‘Yes,’ he says.

That’s when I realise he’s watching me. He’s watching me with the wary eyes of someone who is about to be caught doing something they shouldn’t. And that makes me wonder what that something is. I walk towards the desk, carefully put the coffee down. ‘Two sugars,’ I say.

‘Right,’ he says. ‘Thanks.’ He lifts a hand to the screen and carefully angles it away from me.

‘Any idea how much longer it’s going to take?’

‘For this one? Or for all of them?’

God, he is beautiful. His skin is tanned and smooth, his eyelashes long. He is quite possibly the loveliest man I have ever laid eyes on. But it is ridiculous that I am letting this thought take up space in my brain, because a pretty young man is not part of the plan. I have no use for a man like this, and it is distinctly unlikely that he has any use for a woman like me.

And yet there is electricity in the air when I look at him, a tension in the room and in his dark, dark eyes that I cannot ignore and I cannot deny. I should leave the room now. I have work to do, and so does he, and I have nothing more to say, and yet I can’t. His gaze remains steady on my face. I’d like to say that he’s looking at me, that he sees something in me that he can’t look away from, but I am not that stupid.

He is looking at me so he can avoid looking at the computer screen.

I take a deep breath, breathe in the moment, breathe him in. And then, for some reason, a reason I can’t fathom, I put my hand on the corner of the monitor and jerk it round. There on the screen is an exquisitely beautiful woman, with dark glossy hair and generous breasts, sitting on the face of a naked and thrillingly well-endowed man.

Silence stretches between us, long and heavy. The image is almost hypnotic, the woman arching her back in ecstasy as the man lowers a hand to his erection and starts to fondle himself. I know what I’m supposed to say in these circumstances, how I’m supposed to react. I know I should be disgusted but I’m not, and I cannot stop myself looking at the screen. What they’re doing is just so…delicious, and oh, he’s stroking himself harder, and…

Lucas’s hand shoots to the mouse and he closes the window. It vanishes instantly, as if it had never been there, as if the past thirty seconds had existed only in my imagination, but I continue to stare at the screen, shocked to find myself willing the image to come back. ‘Please don’t tell anyone,’ he says.

I straighten up, smooth down my blouse, Unflappable Meredith, though inside I’m shaking. What is wrong with me? ‘I will be keeping an eye on you,’ I say. ‘This sort of behaviour is not acceptable at work. I’ll let it pass, just this once, but don’t let me catch you again, Mr Brady.’