Chapter 3: The Office Daydream
The numbers on the screen bled into a gray static haze. Orihime’s fingers rested on the keyboard, unmoving. A column of quarterly actuarial figures meant nothing against the memory of a textured, gummy swallow. The hollow craving was back, a cold pit beneath her navel that yawned wide, echoing.
She shifted in her padded chair, the subtle movement sending a dull ache through her lower back and a hot throb between her legs. The sensations were joined now, inseparable. The phantom weight of that bloated stomach from last night had faded, leaving behind this… this hunger. It was specific. It wanted the bitterness, the grit, the shame.
She saw Goro’s thick, veined hands in her mind, not as they passed her files, but as they rolled a condom down his length. The thought should have revolted her. It did. But beneath the revulsion, a deep, perverse well of curiosity opened up. What did it look like, firsthand? Not the discarded evidence, but the source? The image made her bite down on her lower lip, hard. A sharp, bright pain that grounded nothing.
“Earth to Kurosaki.”
She jumped, the voice scattering the lurid daydream like crows. Kenji from Accounting was leaning on the fabric partition of her cubicle, a lazy grin on his face. His eyes, as always, didn’t meet hers. They were fixed a few inches lower, where her white dress shirt strained against the heavy, soft slope of her breasts. The top button had come undone sometime during the morning; she hadn’t bothered to re-fasten it.
“You’ve been staring at that same cell for ten minutes,” he said, his tone teasing. “Waiting for it to ask you out?”
Orihime felt a flush creep up her neck. She offered a weak, practiced smile. “Just a lot of data to process. My brain’s taking a coffee break without me.”
“Looks like it.” His gaze dropped again, lingering. “Rough night? You seem… distracted.”
The word hung in the air, thick with implication. Distracted. By the memory of a sour, clotting mouthful. By the lingering, sickly-sweet taste she could still conjure on her tongue if she tried. Her mouth did water then, a sudden, involuntary surge that made her swallow.
“Just tired,” she murmured, looking back at her monitor. The spreadsheet was a blur.
“Well, don’t work too hard.” Kenji pushed off the partition, but didn’t leave. “A bunch of us are grabbing drinks after work at The Rusty Nail. You should come. Blow off some steam.”
It was a weekly ritual, an invitation she always declined. Ichigo wouldn’t like it. A wife shouldn’t. But Ichigo wasn’t here. Ichigo was in a hotel room in Osaka, or maybe Fukuoka by now, his location a vague rumor in their text chain. The loneliness of her king-sized bed yawned wider than the craving in her stomach.
“Maybe,” she heard herself say. The word was soft, almost lost in the hum of the ventilation.
Kenji’s eyebrows shot up. “Seriously? Well, alright then. Don’t be a stranger.” He gave a low whistle as he turned away, a sound meant for her to hear.
Alone again, the silence in her cubicle was deafening. The buzz of the fluorescent lights became the buzz in her veins. She uncrossed and recrossed her legs, the friction of her stockings a pathetic whisper against the thunderous need building inside her. She thought of the condom with the dark, coarse hair. The scratch of it in her throat. A shuddering breath escaped her.
What is wrong with me?
The question was a formality. The answer was squirming in her gut, hot and alive. She was a woman unraveling, a single, pulled thread away from coming completely apart. The faithful wife was a costume she put on each morning, but the zippers were rusted, the seams splitting. Underneath was someone else. Someone who licked putrid residue from her own skin and wanted more.
Her phone vibrated on the desk. A message from Ichigo.
>>Made it to Nagoya. Meeting ran late. Talk tomorrow?
The punctuation was efficient. A full stop. No “love you,” no “miss you.” Just a period. She stared at it, the little gray bubble a perfect symbol of the emptiness in her life. Her thumb hovered over the keyboard. She could tell him. She could type, I think I’m losing my mind. I did something terrible. I’m so scared. But the distance wasn’t just miles; it was a chasm filled with unreturned calls and unshared beds. He wouldn’t understand. He’d see a problem to be managed, not a soul sinking.
She typed back, Okay. Be safe. She added a heart emoji. It looked like a cheap sticker placed over a crack.
The afternoon dragged, each minute a slow torture of spreadsheets and suppressed imagery. Every time a male colleague passed her cubicle, her eyes would flick up, tracing the lines of their bodies, wondering. Was it him? Was he the one who left the green-tinted one? Was it the balding man from Compliance with the thick fingers? The young intern with the arrogant swagger? They were all suspects in the secret trial in her mind, each one capable of producing that specific, corrupt essence she now, horrifyingly, craved.
At 5:15, the office began to empty. Kenji appeared again, jacket slung over his shoulder. “Coming, Kurosaki?”
She shook her head, the motion a little too quick. “Not tonight, Kenji. I have… groceries. To buy.”
“Suit yourself.” He shrugged, the dismissal clear. “Your loss. The stories get wilder after the third round.”
She waited until the last murmur of colleagues faded, until the only sound was the industrial hum of the building’s after-hours heartbeat. The emptiness was a physical pressure. She stood, her knees feeling unsteady, and gathered her purse. The leather strap felt alien in her damp palm.
The evening air outside was a shock, cool and freighted with the scent of rain on pavement. It did nothing to cleanse her. Each step toward the train station was a decision unmade. She pictured her apartment—the silent kitchen, Kazui’s locked door, the bedroom full of ghosts and evidence. Her stomach turned, but not with disgust. With a terrible, yawning need.
She passed the turn for her usual line. Her heels clicked a faster, deliberate rhythm on the concrete. Four blocks down, tucked between a pachinko parlor and a shutter-closed pharmacy, was a small liquor store. The bell jingled with a shocking cheerfulness.
The sake selection was mediocre. She chose a mid-price bottle, something green and sleek. The clerk, an older man with tobacco-stained fingers, didn’t look at her face. He looked at the bottle, then at the swell of her chest under her coat. “Good choice,” he grunted, placing it in a bag.
She didn’t thank him. Outside, she clutched the bag like a lifeline. Goro’s apartment was in the opposite direction from her own, a older complex near the shipping warehouses. She’d never been, but she knew the address. She’d seen it on overtime forms. The walk was fifteen minutes, a journey through deepening shadows and the occasional glare of a streetlamp.
Her phone buzzed. Kazui.
>>Staying at Renji’s tonight. Don’t wait up.
A clean, simple escape. He was always escaping her. She typed back a simple ‘okay’, her heart a stone in her chest. The final tether, however thin, was snipped. The warehouse district loomed, buildings like hulking beasts.
Goro’s building was cement stained with decades of exhaust. She stood before the intercom panel, her finger hovering. This was the precipice. She could turn, walk to the station, go home, pour this sake down the drain and try to forget the taste of infection. She closed her eyes. She saw the crumpled wrappers on her floor. She saw Ichigo’s text bubble. She saw the empty, forgiving dark of Goro’s likely messy apartment.
She pressed the button. The sound was harsh, electronic.
A crackle. “Yeah?” His voice was even coarser through the speaker.
“It’s… Orihime. From accounting.” She winced at the tremor in her own voice.
A long pause. Static. “No shit.”
“I… I bought too much sake. Thought you might… help me drink it?” The lie was pathetic, transparent as glass.
The buzzer screamed, the lock clacking open violently. No verbal reply. Just entry granted. The foyer smelled of mildew and old curry. She took the stairs to the third floor, each step a surrender. His door, 3B, was already ajar.
She pushed it open. The apartment was a closet, dominated by a large, rumpled futon and a massive television. The air was thick with the smell of fried food, sweat, and masculine solitude. Goro stood by a small kitchenette, wearing sweatpants and a stained t-shirt. He was larger here, in his own territory.
“Kurosaki,” he said, his eyes mapping her slowly, from her hesitant heels to her flushed face. They lingered, boldly, on the bag in her hand, then on the cleft of her breasts. “You lost?”
“I brought sake,” she repeated, helplessly, holding up the bag as if presenting a shield.
A slow grin split his face. He gestured to the single low table surrounded by cushions. “Well, don’t just stand in the doorway like a delivery girl. Get in here. I’ll get some cups.” He turned his back to her, bending over a low cupboard, and Orihime’s breath hitched. She saw the condom from her bedroom floor, the one with his thick, dark hair caught in the knot.
She stepped inside, letting the door click shut behind her. The sound was final.
He turned with two chipped ceramic cups, his gaze like hands on her skin. “You don’t seem the sake-in-strange-apartments type, Kurosaki.” He placed the cups on the low table with a solid thunk.
“I’m full of surprises,” she said, the line feeling borrowed from a bad movie. She knelt on a cushion, the position making her skirt ride up her thighs. She focused on opening the bottle, her fingers clumsier than she wanted them to be.
The first pour was too full, the liquid spilling over the rim and onto the scratched table. “Shit, sorry.”
“No problem.” He watched the spill pool, then his eyes lifted to hers. “Nervous?”
“A little.” It was the first true thing she’d said. The sake was a cold fire in her throat. It didn’t calm her; it poured fuel on the weird, shaking thing inside her. “It’s quiet at my place. Too quiet. Kazui’s out.”
“Husband still away?” He drank his entire cup in one gulp, refilled it.
She nodded, sipping again. “Nagoya. Or maybe Sendai. It blurs.”
“Must be tough.” He didn’t sound sympathetic. He sounded interested. “A woman like you. Alone.”
The compliment, if it was one, was coated in grease. It warmed her anyway. She felt a bead of sweat trace a path between her breasts. The office shirt was too tight, the fabric suddenly cheap and stifling. “You get used to it.”
“Bullshit.” He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “Nobody gets used to being lonely. They just find ways to fill the time. Or get filled.”
The crudeness was a slap. She flinched, but the heat in her belly flared in response. She finished her cup, held it out for a refill. “What’s your way, Goro?”
He smiled, a flash of crooked teeth. “This ain’t so bad.” His knee brushed against hers under the table. A static shock of contact. She didn’t pull away.
They drank. The bottle emptied with alarming speed. His stories grew louder, coarser—tales of warehouse fights and bar-top conquests. She laughed in the right places, her head swimming. She leaned forward to emphasize a point, letting her shirt gape. His storytelling faltered, his eyes dipping into the shadowed valley.
“You’re fucking gorgeous, you know that?” The words slurred together. “Every guy in the office jerks off thinking about you. Bet even the married ones.”
She should have been offended. She felt powerful. “Do you?” The question left her lips, a feather-light challenge.
He blinked, slow. “What, jerk off? Hell yes. Thinking about these.” His hand waved vaguely toward her chest. “That time you dropped your pen and bent over in the break room. Fuck.”
The memory was mundane. The weight of his attention made it feel obscene. A thrilling filth. She topped up his cup, her own movements loose and sloppy. “I’m not that interesting.”
“You’re a fucking goddess is what you are.” He drank deeply, swaying. “Out of everyone’s league. Especially that absentee husband of yours.”
The mention of Ichigo should have been a bucket of cold water. Instead, it felt like a permission slip. This man saw her. He wanted her. It was a base, ugly want, and it was the most honest thing she’d felt in years.
“He doesn’t see me,” she whispered, more to herself.
“I see you,” Goro grunted. His eyes were growing heavy, the alcohol pulling his lids down. “I’d never leave you alone in some big, empty bed.”
His speech was thickening, each word mashed into the next. He tried to stand, to get another bottle from the fridge, and stumbled back onto the cushion. “Whoa. S’strong stuff.”
“Just relax,” Orihime said, her voice a soft melody. She shifted closer, until her hip pressed against his. The contact was electric. He groaned, a sound of pure appetite, and his head lolled onto her shoulder. His breath was hot and sour against her neck.
“Fuck, Orihime…” His hand landed on her thigh, a heavy, possessive weight.
“It’s okay,” she cooed, tracing a finger along the line of his jaw. “Just rest.”
His grumbles dissolved into deep, rattling breaths. The hand on her thigh went slack, sliding off. His mouth hung open, a low snore building in his throat. She waited, perfectly still, as the snore became a consistent, drunk roar. The sake bottle was empty beside him.
This was it. The buzzing in her veins reached a fever pitch, silent and screaming. She gently lowered his bulk sideways onto the futon. He didn’t stir, a dead weight of flesh and stained cotton.
Her movements became precise, detached. She knelt on the worn tatami beside the futon. Her fingers went to his sweatpants, tugging the drawstring knot loose. He muttered something incoherent, hips shifting slightly. She pulled the fabric down, just enough. The reality of him, thick and uncircumcised and heavy with the musky scent of a long day, hit her senses. This was the source. The factory for the bitter, clotted essence she’d craved since licking it from her lips in her silent bedroom.
She didn’t hesitate. She leaned in, her orange hair curtaining them both, and took him fully into her mouth.
It was not an act of service. It was consumption. She worked him with a sloppy, voracious hunger, saliva slicking her chin, her techniques clumsy and relentless. The taste was salt and skin and something profoundly male. It was bitter. It was real. She gagged, then pushed deeper, a choked sob of triumph vibrating in her throat.
He stirred in his sleep, a groan rumbling from his chest. His hips gave an involuntary, sleepy thrust. It was enough. The hot, sudden pulse against the back of her throat was shocking in its intensity. She pulled back, just enough to see the first thick stripe land on her tongue.
She didn’t spill a drop. She drank it greedily, a starved creature finally at the trough. It was warmer than the condom’s contents, cleaner in its saltiness, but it carried the same primal truth. This was betrayal. This was fulfillment. She swallowed it all in one convulsive, hungry gulp, her body shuddering as she licked her lips clean.