Chapter 16: The Office Game
The scent of the orchid on Julianna’s desk was cloying today, a sweet, expensive poison in the sterile air. Sunlight cut across the black marble floor, a sharp blade of gold that ended at my thighs where I sat perched on the edge of the vast desk. I wore a dove-gray pencil skirt, tailored to within an inch of its life, and a blush-pink silk blouse whose top three buttons were undone. The shadowed valley between my breasts was a calculated accident.Julianna leaned back in her throne-like chair, her eyes on the door. “Remember,” she said, her voice a low murmur meant only for me.“He’s bright. Ambitious.Thinks his spreadsheets are the key to the kingdom. Your job is to make him forget the numbers, even while he’s reciting them.”
A soft knock. “Enter,” Julianna called, her tone shifting to one of brisk authority.Daniel Walker opened the door. He was young for an analyst, maybe twenty-eight, with the careful posture of someone trying to project confidence. Clean-cut, handsome in a forgettable way, with eyes that darted between the two of us, unsure where to land.He clutched a tablet to his chest like a shield.
“Miss Cross.Evelyn.You wanted the Q3 budget projections?”
“We do, Daniel. Sit.” Julianna gestured to the low chair facing the desk—a chair deliberately shorter than ours, putting him at a physical disadvantage.He sat, clearing his throat, and began pulling up files on his tablet. As he spoke about variances and forecasting models, Julianna slowly crossed her legs. The whisper of nylon was louder than his voice. She let her knee-high skirt ride up, exposing a perfect slice of thigh above her stocking.Daniel’s sentence faltered for a half-second.
“Go on,” Julianna purred. “I’m fascinated by your margin analysis.”
I swung one leg, the heel of my pump dangling, then dropped to the carpet. I walked around the desk and stood beside Daniel, leaning over his shoulder to look at the screen. The scent of my perfume—something dark and vanilla, Julianna’s choice—enveloped him.I felt him stiffen.
“This figure here, Daniel,” I said, my voice close to his ear. I reached out, my finger pointing to a cell on the spreadsheet.My wrist brushed his.His skin was warm. “It seems… optimistic.Can you explain your methodology?”
He tried.He really did. But his words were becoming glue in his mouth. I stayed leaned over, knowing my blouse gaped open, knowing the view he had was of lace and the stark, unnatural swell of my cleavage.
Julianna watched, a faint smile playing on her lips. She uncrossed her legs and re-crossed them the other way, a slow, deliberate performance.“Your projections lack… rigor, Daniel,” she said. “I need to see how hard you can work these numbers. Show me your depth.”
He shifted in his seat, a subtle, telltale movement.A flush crept up his neck. When he next spoke, his voice had a strained quality.“Of course, Miss Cross. I can run more granular simulations—”
“Do you have the capacity for that?” I interrupted, straightening up but letting my hand trail across the back of his chair. I moved to sit on the desk again, this time directly in his line of sight. I crossed my own legs, slowly, mimicking Julianna. His eyes snapped to them, then jerked back to his tablet, a sheen of sweat now visible on his temple.
“I… I believe so, Evelyn.”
“Belief isn’t evidence,” Julianna said, her tone cooling.“I want proof of performance. Can you handle the pressure?” She let her gaze drift meaningfully down, then back to his face.
Daniel was unraveling.The bulge in his trousers was no longer subtle. He tried to adjust his position, to hide it, but the movement only drew attention. The confident analyst was gone, replaced by a boy caught in a dizzying web.His presentation devolved into stammering repetitions.
After five more minutes of this exquisite torture, Julianna waved a hand.“That will be all, Daniel. Submit the revised projections by end of day. And Daniel?” she added as he stood, awkwardly clutching his tablet in front of himself. “Close the door on your way out.”
He nearly tripped in his haste, fumbling with the handle. The door clicked shut, but didn’t catch, swinging open a silent inch.
The moment it closed, the energy in the room condensed, tightening around Julianna and me.The professional masks evaporated. Julianna’s green eyes found mine, lit with a cold, hungry fire.
“Now,” she said, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. “Lock the door.”
I stood, my legs steady, and walked to the door, pushing it until the lock engaged with a solid, final thud. The sound sealed us in our gilded cage.“Come here,” she commanded.I returned to the desk. She didn’t tell me to sit.She just stared, waiting.“Recount it,” she said. “Every detail of his discomfort. While you touch yourself for me.”
A thrill, sharp and electric, shot through my core.This was the price, the reward. The humiliation we inflicted on others was merely currency for this private economy between us.
I leaned back against the hard edge of the desk, hiking my skirt up around my hips.The cool marble bit into my skin. I met her gaze and didn’t look away.
“His hands were shaking,” I began, my voice steady, as my own hand slipped beneath the waistband of my panties. “When he tried to scroll on the tablet, his finger slipped. He had to do it twice.” My fingers found my clit, already slick from the performance.I circled it slowly, maintaining eye contact with Julianna. “He couldn’t form full sentences. He kept saying ‘um’ and ‘ah.’ Like his brain had short-circuited.”
Julianna watched, her breathing shallow. “And his body?”
“He got hard almost immediately,” I said, my own breath catching as I increased the pressure. “When you crossed your legs the second time, he actually flinched.As if you’d struck him. He tried to hide it, to adjust himself, but it was pathetic. Obvious.” I slid two fingers inside myself, a soft, wet sound punctuating my words. “The front of his trousers was straining.He looked… ashamed. And so, so turned on.”
“Good,” Julianna breathed.She stood now, circling me like a predator.“And what did that do to you? Watching him break?”
“It made me wet,” I admitted, the filthiness of the confession feeding the fire.“Knowing we did that.Knowing I did that.Just by leaning over. Just by existing in this body you gave me.” I was fucking myself with my fingers now, a steady, urgent rhythm.“He was nothing. A smart boy reduced to a dumb, leaking cock in cheap wool blend trousers.And it was so… easy.”
Julianna was behind me. Her hands came down on my shoulders, her nails biting. “Did you want him?”
“No,” I groaned, the answer immediate and true.“I wanted his… his helplessness. I wanted to see the bulge. I wanted to know he’d go back to his cubicle and stare at his screen and smell me on his skin and have to fucking deal with it.”
“Yes,” Julianna hissed, her mouth at my ear.“That’s it.That’s the power. It doesn’t reside between your legs. It’s here.” She pressed a hard finger against my temple. “It’s in the choice to offer what they think they want, and to poison the gift.”
Her other hand snaked around my hip, displacing my own. Her fingers, cool and demanding, dove into me.I cried out, my head falling back against her.
“Tell me you feel it,” she commanded, her fingers curling inside me, stroking a place that made my vision blur.“I feel it,” I gasped. “God, Julianna, I feel it.”
“This is your true work,” she whispered, her thrusts precise and devastating. “Not the spreadsheets.This.The reduction of a man to his base desires. The translation of that desire into capital. Into compliance.” She bit my shoulder, not hard enough to mark, but enough to sting.“Now come. Come on the memory of his pathetic, desperate face.”
It wasn’t a request.It was a geas. My body obeyed, convulsing around her hand, a raw, shuddering orgasm tearing through me with a violence that bent me over the desk. I choked on the silence, my fingers scrabbling against polished black stone.
She held me through the tremors, then slowly withdrew.She brought her glistening fingers to my lips. I took them into my mouth, tasting myself, clean and sharp.
She pulled her hand away, watching me with an expression of pure, undiluted possession. “The Senator has arranged a weekend fundraiser at his vineyard in Sonoma.You’ll accompany him. His wife will be in Geneva.” She smoothed my skirt down, a strangely intimate gesture. “This time, he gets to see your face the entire time. I want you to make him beg to come on it.”
I straightened up, the aftershocks still tingling in my limbs. The ghost in the mirror was solid now, a creature of purpose and cunning. “And what will he beg for?”
Julianna’s smile was a razor slash of triumph.“Whatever we need, my dear. Whatever we need.”