Chapter 2: The Elevator Ride
The restroom door swung shut behind Rachel with a heavy, final click. The hallway stretched before her, a tunnel of beige carpet and buzzing fluorescents leading to the bank of elevators. Her portfolio felt like a foreign object in her sweaty hand. Every sound—the distant clack of a keyboard, the low murmur of a phone conversation from a cubicle—made her flinch.She needed air. She needed to be anywhere but inside this building that hummed and watched and stole pieces of her.
She walked quickly, heels tapping a frantic rhythm on the floor. The elevator doors were polished steel, reflecting a warped, rushing version of herself: a blotch of grey skirt, a smear of dark hair, glasses glinting. She stabbed the down button with her thumb._Come on. Come on._
The light above the door glowed a steady, indifferent red. Panic, a thin, metallic taste, rose in the back of her throat.What if someone came?Janine, or Marcus? What would they see in her face? She adjusted her glasses, smoothed her skirt, tried to force her breathing into something resembling calm.A soft ding.The doors slid open.The elevator car was empty, thank God. She hurried inside, turning to face the doors as they began their slow, silent close.Sanctuary. Just a sixty-second descent to the lobby, to the exit, to the parking lot and her car and the illusion of control.A hand shot between the closing doors.They jerked back open.
Harold Finch stood there, blinking behind his large, round glasses. He had a rumpled look, like he’d slept in his clothes—a faded video game t-shirt under an unbuttoned flannel, khakis with a slight stain near the pocket. In his arms he cradled a cardboard box full of tangled cables and old computer parts.
“Oh,” he said, his voice soft, almost reedy.“Hey. Going down?”
Rachel could only nod, pressing herself back against the mirrored wall to make room.The doors closed, sealing them in together.The car was small, too small. It smelled of old coffee from the cup he’d left on the floor by the control panel, and something else—a sharp, clean scent like solder or rubbing alcohol.
“First day, right?” Harold asked, shifting the box in his arms. He didn’t look at her directly, his eyes darting to the numbers counting down above the door. 12… 11…
“Yeah,” Rachel managed.Her voice sounded strange to her own ears.“It’s a lot. The orientation, I mean.The… videos.” He gave a little self-deprecating chuckle. “I helped digitize some of the old ones. They’re pretty dry.”
10… 9…
Rachel’s skin prickled.Videos.He said videos. The warmth, the liquid pull from the conference room stirred in her abdomen, a sleepy snake uncoiling. She gripped her portfolio tighter. The mirrors on every side reflected infinite versions of them, a repeating tunnel of Harold and Rachel stretching into a distorted distance. She caught a glimpse of her own reflection: flushed cheeks, lips parted.She looked expectant.
“You, um, you might want to avoid the vending machines on three,” Harold said conversationally, his eyes now on the swirling grain of the cardboard box. “The chocolate bar selection is terrible. Nothing but Butterfingers.”
The word landed not in her ears, but directly in her nervous system.Butterfinger.A switch flipped.
The world didn’t fade to black.It sharpened, impossibly, into hyper-focused detail. The hum of the elevator motor became a deep, resonant thrum between her legs. The smell of coffee and solder coalesced into a single, intoxicating musk—the scent of him. The infinite Rachels in the mirrors all had the same wide, blank eyes, the same slackening jaw.
A profound, hollow ache bloomed in the core of her. It was an emptiness so severe it was pain, a vacuum centered in her mouth, her throat, her womb.She needed to fill it. She needed the weight, the stretch, the taste. Logic, memory, fear—they were pages blowing away in a sudden wind.There was only the need, and the object.
Her portfolio hit the floor with a dull thud.Harold was still talking, his voice a distant buzz. “...always stick with the chips, honestly…”
Rachel sank to her knees. The coarse elevator carpet scratched through her tights. Her hands came up, her movements fluid and sure, and her fingers went to the button and zip of his khakis.He didn’t startle.He didn’t move. He just looked down, over the top of his glasses, a faint smile playing on his lips as he shifted the box in his arms to give her better access.He was already hard. She freed him, and a soft, grateful sound escaped her lips. He was thick, the head flushed dark and already beaded with a clear, salty pearl.The ache in her jaw intensified. She didn’t hesitate.She leaned forward, her glasses slipping down her nose, and took him into her mouth.
The taste was everything.Salty, musky, profoundly real. It flooded her senses, drowning out every other thought. Her lips stretched around his girth, her tongue pressed flat against the velvety underside. She sucked, hard, a deep, pulling desperation that made her own core clench in sympathetic rhythm.“There you go,” Harold murmured above her, his voice calm. He rested the box of cables on the handrail. One of his hands came down, his fingers threading through her hair, not tenderly, but with a firm, guiding pressure.“Easy. Just like that.”
8… 7…
He began to move her head, setting a slow, insistent pace. Each time he guided himself deeper, the head of his cock nudging the back of her throat, a corresponding jolt of electricity seemed to spark in her clit. It was exactly as the void in her mind promised: the feeling of him there, stretching her throat, was a rough, glorious friction on her most sensitive nerve. Pleasure, raw and urgent, built in her pelvis, a knot tightening with every pull of her mouth, every soft grunt from above.
But it hovered, maddeningly, just out of reach. She worked her mouth and throat, slurping and sucking, desperate for that final release, for the hot spill that would unlock her own. She clutched at his thighs, her nails digging into the fabric, her whole body a single plea for completion.
6… 5…
“You’re so eager for it,” Harold observed, his breath hitching slightly. His grip in her hair tightened, holding her still as he pushed himself deeper, a steady, relentless invasion that made her eyes water. She gagged, once, but the discomfort was just another thread in the tapestry of overwhelming sensation.She swallowed around him, and he moaned.The numbers kept changing. They meant nothing. There was only the rhythm, the taste, the building, intolerable pressure in her own body, coiling tighter and tighter, a spring about to snap.
4…
He pulled her head back sharply, his cock slipping from her lips with a wet pop. She whimpered, a raw, animal sound of loss.He wasn’t finished. He held himself, stroked once, twice, his expression one of detached concentration.Then it came. Hot, bitter, rivulets striping her tongue, her throat, filling her mouth. She swallowed convulsively, greedily, as another pulse, and another, painted the back of her throat. The moment the salty warmth hit her stomach, the knot inside her shattered.Her orgasm ripped through her, silent and violent. Her back arched, her cunt clamping down on nothing, waves of fire radiating out from her core, burning through the lingering haze. It left her trembling, spent, kneeling on the floor, her forehead resting against his thigh, strings of spit and semen connecting her lips to him.
3…
Harold tucked himself back into his pants, zipped up.He picked up his box of cables. He smoothed down her hair with the same hand that had just gripped it.The ding was a physical shockwave.
The elevator doors slid open on the third floor. A woman stood there, holding a file folder, about to step in. She blinked, taking in the scene: Rachel on her knees, scrambling to her feet, her face flushed, her mouth glistening, glasses askew.
“Going up?” Harold asked politely, holding the door.The woman hesitated, then shook her head.“No. I’ll, uh, catch the next one.”
The doors closed. Harold pressed the ‘Door Close’ button, then the ‘Lobby’ button again. He glanced at Rachel, who was now leaning against the wall, her hands fumbling for her fallen portfolio. “You had a little something…” he pointed to the corner of his own mouth.Rachel wiped her lips with the back of her hand. It came away slick.The taste, overwhelmingly present, filled her mouth and nose. Her jaw ached.Her throat felt bruised and used. The intense, satisfying fire in her pelvis was already cooling into a dull, confused throb.2… Lobby.
The doors opened onto the marble-floored atrium.Harold stepped out, giving her a small, shy nod. “See you tomorrow, Rachel.”
He walked away, disappearing into the after-work crowd.Rachel stumbled out. The taste was still there, a physical fact anchoring her to the moment.She vaguely remembered… a conversation? Something about vending machines? A hazy, intense dream of kneeling, of fullness, of a crushing, wonderful release.She touched her swollen lips.She swallowed, and the lingering proof coated her throat.
Around her, people streamed toward the exits, chatting about dinner plans and traffic. She walked mechanically, the taste on her tongue the only real thing in a world that had gone two-dimensional and silent. The memory was already softening at the edges, blurring into the surreal mist of the conference room episode.A dream.A strange, vivid, inappropriate daydream.
But dreams didn’t leave your mouth sore.Dreams didn’t leave this specific, undeniable taste in your mouth.
She pushed through the glass doors into the cool evening air, but the sterile, ozonic scent of the elevator clung to her, trapped in her clothes, her hair, her skin. She kept walking, one foot in front of the other, her mind a perfect, echoing blank, filled only with the phantom sensation of being full, and the haunting, salty evidence that it had been real.