Chapter 22: Corporate Worship
The last keyboard clatter died with Brenda’s cheerful “Night, all!” The heavy glass door sighed shut behind her, leaving Ron alone in the sudden, cavernous silence of the accounting floor. Fluorescents snapped off overhead, plunging the cubicle farm into gloom punctuated only by the weak amber glow of a few forgotten desk lamps. Shadows stretched long and distorted across the grey fabric walls. The air, thick with the ghosts of reheated lunches and stale coffee, felt colder now. Empty. Oppressive.
Ron stared at his screen, the spreadsheet gridlines blurring. His knuckles ached dully where he’d scraped them against Puck’s doorframe last night. Every nerve ending felt raw, exposed. He just needed to finish reconciling this last column. Just finish. Then he could flee.
A soft scrape. Leather sole on thin carpet. He didn’t need to look up. He felt her presence solidify beside his cubicle partition like a drop in pressure.
"Ronnie." Puck’s voice was a low purr, devoid of its usual office-brightness. It scraped along his spine. "Everyone’s gone."
He kept his eyes fixed on the screen. Cell B14. $4,287.56. Input. Tab. "Almost done," he mumbled, his throat tight.
A cool fingertip traced the shell of his ear. He flinched violently. "Spreadsheets can wait," she breathed, her lips brushing his temple. Her scent – vanilla, smoke, and something uniquely Puck – flooded his senses, drowning out the stale office air. "Boss looks stressed." Her hand slid down, fingers curling possessively around his bicep through the thin cotton of his shirt. "Need to unwind."
Before he could form a protest, she was pulling him up. Her grip was deceptively strong. He stumbled, his chair rolling back with a squeak that echoed too loudly in the emptiness. She steered him, unresisting, towards the narrow alcove housing the industrial printer and the supply closet door. The printer hummed, a low, mechanical thrumming that seemed to vibrate in Ron’s teeth.
Puck fished a key from her skirt pocket – when did she get that? – and unlocked the supply closet. The door swung open, revealing shelves crammed with reams of paper, toner cartridges, and cleaning supplies. The air inside smelled sharply of dust and chemicals. A single bare bulb cast a weak, yellow pool of light on the concrete floor.
She pushed him inside, the door clicking shut behind them. The space was cramped, barely wider than Ron’s shoulders. Shelves pressed in. The printer’s hum was muffled but insistent.
Puck turned. In the dim light, her eyes were bottomless pits, reflecting the bulb’s weak gleam. Gone was the subtlety of the turtleneck. She reached down, gathered the hem of her black skirt, and lifted it slowly. Beneath, stark against her pale thigh, gleamed the thin silver chain Ron remembered biting into his palm. It jingled softly, a cold, metallic counterpoint to the printer’s drone.
"See?" she whispered, a predatory smile touching her lips. "Kept my promise." She took a step closer, forcing him back against a shelf. Boxes of staples dug into his spine. "Now…" Her voice dropped to a husky rasp, thick with intent. "Time for yours."
She sank to her knees on the dusty concrete floor. The chain slithered against her skin. Ron froze, trapped between the shelf and the terrifying intimacy of her descent. Her hands went to his belt buckle. Cold fingers fumbled for a second, then found the button of his grey trousers. The zipper rasped down.
Then, instead of her hands, she leaned forward. He felt the heat of her breath through the thin fabric of his boxers. Then teeth. Sharp, deliberate. She gripped the zipper tab between her teeth and yanked it down the rest of the way with a single, forceful jerk. The sound was obscenely loud in the confined space.
"Boss needs to de-stress," she murmured against the straining fabric beneath, her breath hot and damp. Her hands slid up his thighs, pushing the trousers and boxers down past his hips in one rough motion.
He gasped, the cold closet air hitting exposed skin. Her head dipped. No preamble. No teasing. Her mouth, hot and wet and impossibly wide, engulfed him completely. The sudden, shocking heat, the slick pressure, the scrape of teeth – it punched the air from Ron’s lungs. He slammed his head back against the shelf, stars bursting behind his eyelids.
Puck moaned, a low, guttural sound vibrating against him. Her head bobbed with frantic, desperate rhythm. Deep. Too deep. He felt the convulsive tightening of her throat as she forced herself down, gagging violently. Tears sprang to her eyes, smudging her dark mascara into messy streaks down her cheeks. She didn’t stop. She pushed harder, choking, saliva slicking her chin, her eyes rolling back slightly with the effort. Her free hand plunged beneath her own skirt. Ron heard the wet, rhythmic sound of her fingers working furiously against fabric, accompanied by sharp, gasping inhalations through her nose each time she pulled back slightly for air.
The sensations overwhelmed him – the brutal suction, the gagging, the frantic sounds she made, the sight of her ruined makeup, the rhythmic squelch from under her skirt. Shame, terror, and a horrifying, unwanted surge of pleasure coiled tight in his gut. He was pinned, physically and mentally. The chain jingled faintly with her movements. The printer droned. Dust motes danced in the weak light above her bent head.
It built too fast, a pressure wave fueled by exhaustion, adrenaline, and the sheer, shocking violation of the act. He tried to pull back, a weak groan escaping him. Her hands clamped onto his hips, nails digging in, holding him firmly in place. She took him impossibly deep again, her throat spasming wildly around him. The coil snapped.
He came with a strangled cry, hips jerking uncontrollably against her restraining hands. She swallowed convulsively, taking it all, her eyes squeezed shut, tears and mascara mixing on her flushed cheeks. She held him there, milking the last pulses, until he sagged, trembling, against the shelf.
Slowly, agonizingly, she pulled back. Her lips were swollen, glistening. She looked up at him, her dark eyes wide, pupils blown. She opened her mouth deliberately, sticking out her tongue. Clean. Empty. A faint sheen was the only evidence.
She swallowed visibly, a final, deliberate click in her throat. Then, the ghost of that predatory smile returned. Her voice, when it came, was hoarse, wrecked, but utterly clear in the dusty silence.
"Am I a good girl, Ronnie?"
Ron couldn’t speak. Couldn’t move. He stared down at her, kneeling amidst the dust and printer paper, her skirt rucked up, her face a mess of tears and running makeup, her eyes holding a terrifying mixture of triumph and desperate need. The chain glinted coldly on her thigh. The taste of bile rose in his throat.
He fumbled blindly for his trousers, yanking them up, fingers numb and clumsy. The zipper felt alien, impossible to manage. Puck watched him, still kneeling, her breathing ragged but slowing. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, smearing the mess further.
"Good," she whispered, as if confirming something only she understood. She rose smoothly, brushing dust from her knees. She adjusted her skirt, the chain disappearing beneath the hem. She reached up, touched his cheek with fingers that still smelled faintly of herself. He flinched away.
"See you tomorrow," she breathed, her voice regaining a sliver of its normal cadence, laced with unbearable promise. She unlocked the closet door and slipped out into the shadowed office, leaving Ron alone in the chemical-scented dark, the printer humming its mindless tune beside him, the phantom sensation of her throat still pulsing against him. He leaned his forehead against the cold metal shelf, breathing in dust and despair, the words "good girl" echoing like a curse in the hollow silence.