The Christmas Exhibition (19 page)

             
“Look at me, Matt,” she said calmly.

             
My vision was vexed, fixed on Sean.

             
“Please, baby, don't be mad.” Jill tucked her blonde hair behind her ear. “You have no reason to be angry. You know you're the man I'm in love with.”

             
Did I?

             
“I've searched all my life for you. I don't want to lose you. Can you
please
just look at me, Matt?”

             
I eased the tension in my torso, and turned towards her. “Okay.” The lager in my liver did little to ease the burden of her beauty on my forgiveness.

             
Jill smiled.

             
My eyes wallowed in the wealth of her beauty. The sexy stance. The manner in which her brown leather boots shaped her legs, bending at her knees and slithering together at her thighs, her red miniskirt barely covering the bottom of her ass cheeks, the black belt tightening her waist and her tight top showing off every perfect inch nature had been kind enough to conceive. How could I ever walk away from that?

             
“Baby,” she began, teasing her tongue across her top lip, “I want you to answer me honestly.”

             
The atmosphere of the office changed as
My Heart Will Go On,
Celine Dion's
hit from the movie
Titanic
, started slowly. Somebody was taking the fucking piss.

             
“Have you ever kissed another girl in the time we've been together?”

             
“No!”

             
Sharon and Nici were the final refugees to flee the makeshift dance floor in the middle of the room.

             
“Are you sure?” Jill demanded firmly, placing her hands on her hips and accentuating every consummate curve of her form.

             
“Yes!”

             
Sean performed an about turn and marched over to the stereo.

             
“Shit,” Jill said.

             
“What is it?” I demanded.

             
Sean switched off the music.

             
“Well, Matt...”

             
He fed the lead of a microphone to the apprentice, who promptly plugged it into the stereo. The high-pitched feedback was instantaneous.

             
“... I guess you have my permission...”

             
Sean stood forward and the unfortunate output was cut.

             
“... To kiss the next girl you think you have a chance with.”

             
“I don't understand, Jill.” My coherence was crumbling. “That doesn't make any sense.” My attention was swapping between Jill and Sean. “Why would you-”

             
“Can I have everyone's attention please,” Sean began, his voice brass and compelling over the speakers.

             
The labourers and the ladies turned towards him.

             
“What's happening?” I asked. “What is he doing now?”

             
Jill's brow furrowed. “I...” Fear flushed her face. “I don't know.”

             
My mind parachuted into a panic. What if he had taken centre stage to brag about his conquering of the office slut? To proclaim her treasures for his trove. I would be ostracised by his audacity. Humbled by his humiliation. Emasculated by his exposé.

             
Jill positioned one boot in front of the other, sealing her legs together and carefully, slowly rotated her hips. Her thighs tightened. Her groin rubbed in between. Her mouth partially opened. My girlfriend was visibly aroused.

             
“Ladies, gentlemen,” Sean began, stretching the microphone lead away from the stereo, “can I have your attention please? I have a very important announcement to make.”

             
Jill was losing her self-control. Her self-worth. And albeit her self-awareness in a state of lustful longing for the boss' son.

             
“Tell me what's going on, Jill,” I insisted quietly, stuck between desire and desperation as my hand reached instinctively for hers. I crushed my hand into a fist. I wouldn't be holding hers in the second Sean shamed us.

             
“First of all, my family would like to wish you all a Merry Christmas-”

             
“Get on with it, Seany boy!” George heckled to the laughter and applause of his peers.

             
Sean sighed, his exhalation amplified over the speakers. “Thanks for that.” He pointed to the remaining tins of
Harp
. “No more beer for him!”

             
The raptures of laughter returned for another round.

             
“Anyway, have a Merry Christmas, a Happy New Year and all that fecking bollocks. My da's left you's all a Christmas bonus.” Sean reached into his inside pocket, produced a collection of red envelopes and placed them on a free spot between files on the nearest desk. “Don't forget to lift yours on the way out. And, George...”

             
George looked up.

             
“... You just fecking lift your own, okay?”

             
There was more laughter.

             
George raised his middle-finger, a swagger only afforded the most brazen of leaders.

             
Sean returned the gesture. “Right back at you, big fella. 'Tis the season to be jolly, and all that.”

             
Sweat saturated the small of my back. My boxers clung to the cheeks of my ass. My testicles matted claustrophobically by my pubic hair. “Where's he going with this, Jill?” I whispered.

             
Her red thumbnail was nervously rotating the tip of each finger in one hand. She closed her mouth, held her chin high and pushed out her breasts. Her ass jutted magnificently against her miniskirt.

             
“All right, now those formalities are aside, I can make my announcement.” Sean tilted his head to one side. His eyes lingered on Jill's legs momentarily. “Today is officially my last day with the company.”

             
Jan Dildo gasped.

             
Dave cheered, expecting his peers to follow suit. He fell swiftly silent when they did not.

             
“Thanks, Dave.” Sean looked to the labourers. “Guys, it's been a pleasure working with you. I've never met harder workers in my life.”

             
“Cheeky fucker!” Billy shouted.

             
Sean winked, smiling. “It's time for me to move on.”

             
“Where are you going?”

             
The colour drained from my face as the heads of every attending employee in the company turned in Jill's direction.

             
“I'm leaving the country, Jill,” Sean said coolly.

             
“Where?” she said, her voice barely audible.

             
My heart pounded in my chest, jealousy and angst coagulating as one.

             
“I start in January. I won't be back here. So... I guess... It's goodbye.”

             
“Where...” Jill's whisper fell to silence, lost in the sudden commotion of George and the others volleying a dozen different questions to the centre of the room.

             
Sean handed his microphone to the apprentice, as
U2's Beautiful Day
pumped out from the speakers, serenely celebrating his impending departure.

             
“This is my
last chance to gain the upper hand on him,” Jill stated quietly, then sipped more white wine.

             
I watched her. Her eyes narrowed as she studied Sean. Her boots were parted again. Her legs free. She was a stunning woman, her features dominated by determination that was at once defying and applying to the alcohol in her system. How thin was the line between arousal and anger? Disgust and desire? Valour and vengeance?

             
Do you think it's possible to want to fuck someone you don't even like?

13

Jill glanced to the office clock, inhaled, then slipped another mouthful of her wine down her throat. Her neck was pale, refined and elegant as the liquid fell through her form.

             
“Jill,” I started quietly, checking around us for eavesdroppers, “what the hell is going on here?”

             
Her mascara moved with magnificent ease as her eyes curled with the most minutest of smiles appearing on her face. “Things are falling into place, baby.”

             
Suspicion stabbed at my chest. “What do you mean? Am I losing you?”

             
Her neck whipped her face around to mine. “No!”

             
I was overtly aware of the attention we were drawing, and moved closer to her, taking her free hand gently in mine.

             
Jill squeezed. “Of course you're not losing me, Matt. Why would you think that?”

             
Anxiety anchored dread in my drawl. “Because you can't keep your eyes off him, you disappeared, he disappeared, you were obviously together, I can't have been the only one to notice and then you tell me I can kiss the next girl who comes along. Why? What happened? Where did you go with him?”

             
Jill stared at Sean. Was she a man-eater eyeing her prey? Readying her lure? Her tongue tugged at her lipstick, peeling glistening sparkles from her upper lip. Her nostrils narrowed as she breathed in, inhaling the atmosphere and seconds later expelling her lust.

             
“Jill,” I said, pulling stealthily yet forcefully at her hand for her attention.

             
“What?”

             
“Tell me what happened.”

             
Her eyes focused on mine. She brought more white wine to her mouth. Her pupils dilated. Glazed. Struggled to focus. Her expression faded as she swallowed. “I...” Jill's stare switched to Sean for a split-second as he headed for the exit with his cigarette pack in hand. “I... Oh, Matt, please, you won't understand-”

             
“What the fuck are you talking about, Jill? What?”

             
Sean slammed the office door behind him.

             
“What won't I understand?” I demanded.

             
“Sean caught me under the mistletoe again.”

             
Turmoil twisted inside my torso. Betrayal battered the confines of my brain. While hurt hollowed at my heart. Yet somewhere. Deep, deep within the darkness of my insides. Unexplored and unwilling to retreat. Wishing and willing to be unleashed. A fascinating, fastidious growing realisation that some disgusting, disdainful place in my loins was both breaking and embracing        the shackles of my shame. My emotional turbulence compounded with an upheaval of physical, rousing convulsions. My groin was encapsulated in a minefield of desire. Desire for debauchery. Debasement. Destruction. I wanted to watch something beautiful succumb to something disgraceful. “Fucking hell, Jill,” I said.

             
Her mouth pouted with magnificent inhibition. Her eyes conquered her concern. Her knowledge flourished. Her suppression thrived. Her discernment of my arousal a dissection falling upon exquisite, apocalyptic planes. “Yes, baby.” The strength in her tone a frightening, defining lecture in control.

             
“Not again.” I struggled for composure and balance, feeling my knees weakening and my legs wobbling. “Did you give him another peck on the lips?”

             
“No...”

             
Perspiration stitched my shirt to my chest.

             
“I really wanted to wind him up...”

             
My hands were trembling.

             
“... So I just stood there letting him gape at me-”

             
My imagination exploded with a myriad of mirages. Endless possible imagery appeared to flood my head at once. “Christ, Jill,” I paused, gulping as Christmas lights twinkled above us, “did you flash him?” My mind's eye glimpsed her fingertips pulling her nipples free from her lacy top. Saw Sean gaze in envy. Watched him bridge the gap between them, moulding his mouth to her areola.