Chapter 7: Post drinks, the recap.
The key turned in the lock just after midnight. Mark didn’t move from the edge of the bed where he’d been sitting for two hours, still in his jeans, the ghost of the bar’s bass thump still vibrating in his bones. The door swung open, and Lacy breezed in on a wave of cool night air and the cloying scent of bar smoke and Derek’s cologne.
“Hey, baby,” she singsonged, kicking off her heels. They clattered against the wall. “Mission accomplished.”
She flicked on the overhead light, the sudden glare making Mark flinch. He watched her as if through a thick pane of glass. Her cheeks were flushed, her hair a tousled halo. Her lipstick was still missing. She looked exhilarated, vital, like she’d just won something.
“You should’ve seen their faces when I left,” she continued, unzipping her skirt and letting it pool on the floor. She stood there in her blouse and thigh-highs, utterly at home in her performance. “So convinced. Poor, tipsy Lacy from Marketing. Derek actually patted my head.” She snorted, walking toward him. “After what he just had in his mouth, the condescending prick.”
Mark’s stomach turned. His voice, when he found it, was rough. “What took you so long?”
She stopped in front of him, a sly smile playing on her swollen lips. She placed a hand on his chest, pushed him back gently until he was lying on the rumpled sheets. She swung a leg over his hips, straddling him, her weight familiar and suddenly alien. The bedside lamp backlit her, turning her into a silhouette with a bright blonde corona.
“After you left, things got… intense,” she purred, leaning down so her breasts pressed against his shirt. Her breath smelled of gin and something else, something faintly salty. “Carl wanted a turn. Then Derek wanted seconds. It was a whole thing. Took a while to… finish the job.” She ground herself against the hard line of his cock through his jeans. “But it’s done. After tonight, they’ll never, ever suspect we’re engaged. We’re totally safe.”
She kissed his neck, her tongue hot against his skin. Mark lay rigid, his hands at his sides, fists clenched in the sheets. The images from the video synced with her words, creating a seamless, horrific film in his mind. Carl wanted a turn. Derek wanted seconds.
“Tell me,” he heard himself say, the words torn from somewhere dark. “Tell me what happened.”
She leaned back, looking down at him with those wide, deceiving eyes. She bit her lip, a gesture he’d always found irresistibly cute. Now it looked like a tactic. “I will,” she whispered, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial husk. “I’ll tell you every dirty detail. But first…” She shifted, rolling off him and onto her back beside him. She hooked her thumbs into the waistband of her lace panties and slid them down her legs, tossing them aside. She parted her thighs, the dim light glistening on her. “First, you eat me out. I’m so wet just thinking about it. About telling you.”
It was their ritual. Her storytelling, his arousal, the transaction of secrets for pleasure. It had always electrified him before, this vicarious thrill. Now it was different, her story had always been from before they had met but this one happened tonight.
Now it was different. Her stories had always been from before they met, polished reminiscences she doled out like treats, but this one had happened tonight while he sat nursing a warm beer, stupid and trusting. The air in their bedroom was stale, and her expectant silence felt like a trap.
Mark looked at her, at the purposeful invitation glistening between her thighs, and felt something inside him crack open. He moved because it was the script, the only one he knew. He lowered his head. The familiar taste of her flooded his senses, metallic and musky, undercut by a faint, unfamiliar tang he couldn't place. He worked mechanically, his mind a fractured screen showing Derek’s smirk, Carl’s leering nod.
A soft sigh escaped her. “That’s it,” she breathed, her fingers threading into his hair not with passion, but with direction. “Keep going. I’ll tell you.”
Her hips lifted slightly, pressing against his mouth. He could feel the steady, building tremor in her muscles. Her voice, when it came, was breathy and conversational, as if describing her grocery list.
“So, before you left… you saw me go to the back with them, right?” she started, a hitch in her words. “The hallway was stuffy. Derek said the fire exit led to a quiet spot for a smoke.”
Mark closed his eyes, his tongue moving on autopilot. The bar’s neon ghost painted the backs of his eyelids.
“He wasn’t wrong. It was an alley. Just dumpsters and that cool, dirty asphalt.” She moaned, her thighs tensing around his ears for a second. “Carl giggled, said it was like college. Derek got right in my face. His breath was all whiskey.”
Her hand fisted in his hair, holding him in place. Her words came faster, sharper.
“He asked me if I could resist. Just point-blank. ‘Can you resist sucking both our cocks, campus legend?’” She imitated Derek’s low, taunting baritone perfectly. A cold knot tightened in Mark’s gut even as he felt her body begin to clench. “I didn’t even answer. What was the point? I just… knelt down.”
The image was visceral, immediate: Lacy on her knees in the dark, the rough ground, the two men looming over her. Mark’s own arousal was a sick, separate entity, throbbing in time with her story.
“The asphalt was cool through my stockings,” she gasped. “I unzipped them. Both of them. I took Carl first because he was shaking. He was so quiet. Then Derek… he was bigger, you know? Thicker. I had to really work.” Her narrative dissolved into a sharp cry, her body bowing off the bed as a first, shuddering wave hit her. Mark didn’t stop; the routine was sacred.
As the tremors subsided, her voice returned, slurred with satisfied release. “I went back and forth. Carl, then Derek, then Carl. Derek got impatient.” Her grip on his hair turned from guidance to something harder, a simulation. “He grabbed my head. Both his hands, right in my hair. He just… fucked my face. Hard. Until my throat was raw and he came.”
She finally pushed his head away, gently. Mark rose, his jaw aching, the taste of her and the phantom taste of someone else’s sweat on his tongue. She lay sprawled and spent, a lazy, triumphant smile on her face.
“Swallowed every drop,” she sighed, looking up at the ceiling. “Then I fixed my lipstick and walked back in. They’re convinced, baby. Totally convinced.”
She rolled onto her side, reaching for the button of his jeans. Her fingers were deft, practiced. “Your turn,” she whispered, her eyes glazed and distant, already replaying her victory in the alley. Mark stared at the wall, his body responding to her touch even as the last of his trust quietly vaporized, leaving only a hollow, echoing chamber where his love used to be.
Mark stared at the wall, his body responding to her touch even as the last of his trust quietly vaporized, leaving only a hollow, echoing chamber where his love used to be. Her hand was inside his jeans now, her cool fingers wrapping around him, and he felt himself harden treacherously, a pure animal reaction to the scent of her and the graphic film reel of her story.
He caught her wrist, stilling her. His own voice sounded foreign, strained thin. “Wait.”
Lacy paused, her brow furrowing in a parody of concern. “What’s wrong, baby? You’re so hard.” She gave him a gentle, knowing squeeze.
He turned his head to look at her. The lamp light caught the faint, reddened skin around her lips. “The plan,” he said, each word precise. “Was for you to leave right after me. Just long enough to not look suspicious.” He swallowed. “You came home two hours later.”
Her expression softened into that familiar, ditzy mask, a performance of slight embarrassment. She released him and sat up, pulling her knees to her chest. “I know, I know. I’m sorry. It just… evolved.”
“Evolved how?” The question hung in the stale air between them.
She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, looking past him at the wrinkled sheet. “After you left, I just planned to stay for one drink. Maybe two. Be polite, you know? Solidify the ‘single girl’ vibe.” She glanced back, her blue eyes wide and clear. “I was at the bar, finishing my gin and tonic, when Derek came over with Raj and Tom from mergers.”
Mark knew them. Quiet Raj with the expensive watches, loud Tom who always talked about his marathon times.
“Derek was already pretty lit,” she continued, her tone conversational, as if recounting a mildly interesting office rumor. “He slings his arm around me and says, real loud, ‘Boys, you will not believe what just happened out back.’” She imitated Derek’s booming voice perfectly. “He told them. About me. About Carl. All of it.”
Mark’s breath shallowed. He could see it: the gleaming bar, the men leaning in, Lacy at the center pretending to be mortified.
“Raj got all quiet. Tom’s face went beet red. They were staring at me like… like I was a menu.” She shrugged a shoulder, a delicate, helpless gesture. “Then Derek nudged me and said, ‘See? Now you’ve got expectations to manage.’ And Tom, he just laughed this nervous laugh and said, ‘Well, shit. Can’t let Carl and Derek have all the fun.’"
She reached for him again, her hand resuming its slow, rhythmic motion. Mark felt utterly paralyzed, split in two. “So?” he managed to ask.
“So,” Lacy sighed, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. She leaned forward, her breath warm on his stomach. “When Derek told Raj and Tom how I sucked off him and Carl…” She looked up at him from under her lashes, her lips a hair’s breadth from his skin. “They kinda wanted a turn.”
The statement, delivered with that light, almost apologetic cadence, detonated in the quiet room.
Before he could speak, she took him into her mouth. The heat was instantaneous, engulfing, a physiological betrayal that ripped a groan from his throat. His hands flew to her head, not to push her away, but to anchor himself against the tidal wave of revulsion and blinding need. She worked slowly, thoroughly, a contented hum vibrating against him.
She pulled off with a soft, wet sound. “Raj first,” she murmured, her cheek resting against his thigh. “In the men’s room. He was quick. Nervous. Kept saying ‘sorry’.” She laughed, a tiny puff of air. “Then Tom. In the same stupid hallway. He wasn’t quick.” Her tongue traced a slow line. “He wanted to… take his time. Call the shots.”
Mark’s mind fragmented. The video on Raj’s phone hadn’t been an old college relic. It was fresh. It was from tonight. Tom, with his marathon endurance, taking his time in that dim, beer-sticky hallway.
“You… you just…” The words wouldn’t form.
“I had to,” she whispered, her mouth returning to him, her speech becoming broken around the act. “It was optics, Mark. They all saw each other. Now they all have the same secret. Now they’ll all vouch for me being the office slut who’s definitely not engaged to you.” She took him deep, gagged softly, and retreated, her lips slick. “It’s airtight now. It’s perfect.”
Her pace quickened, becoming deliberate and relentless. Mark’s head slammed back against the pillow. He saw the ceiling crack, a hairline fracture he’d never noticed before. He felt the building pressure in his groin, a dam about to break. He saw Raj’s apologetic wince, Tom’s triumphant grin, Derek’s smirk from the alley, all twisting together with the image of Lacy’s earnest, planning face across a dinner table.
A sound escaped him, ragged and torn.
She sensed his climax and doubled her efforts, one hand cupping him tightly. The release, when it crashed over him, was not pleasure but a violent expulsion, a physical purge of something poisoned. He shook with it, his vision spotting.
She stayed with him until the very last tremor, then sat up, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. She smiled at him, a bright, satisfied smile. “See?” she said, crawling up to nestle against his heaving chest. “All for us. All for our future.”
Mark lay gasping at the ceiling, the taste of copper and betrayal in his own mouth. Her weight on his arm was an anchor, tying him to the wreckage. The hollow chamber inside him wasn’t echoing anymore. It was just silent, and very, very dark.
It was just silent, and very, very dark.
Lacy’s breathing evened out into a soft, contented rhythm against his shoulder. Her skin was damp with sweat. Mark could feel every point where their bodies touched as a separate, burning brand. The ceiling fan turned slowly, a lazy, clicking orbit that did nothing to move the heavy air.
He didn’t know how much time passed. A minute. Ten. His mind was a blank, white screen.
Then her voice cut through, small and curious, as if she’d just remembered a forgotten bit of trivia.
“Hey, Mark?”
He didn’t respond. His throat felt sealed shut.
She propped herself up on an elbow, her blonde hair cascading over his chest. In the low light, her expression was one of genuine, almost academic inquiry. She traced a circle around his nipple with a fingernail.
“Do you think anal would count as sex?”
The question hung there, absurd and monstrous. It wasn’t whispered like a secret. It was asked plainly, like she was wondering about the weather or a tax deduction.
Mark’s body went rigid. The white screen in his mind fractured, flooding with a barrage of jagged, unwelcome images: Lacy bent over the dumpster in that alley, Tom from mergers gripping her hips, the precise, logistical mechanics of what she was suggesting. His stomach clenched.
“What?” The word was a dry crack.