[Many of the characters here first appeared in Entertaining at Home. Seems a long time ago. Many thanks for the comments, support and suggestions. More are always welcome.]
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Fitting work into a hectic schedule of exhibitionism and sexual experimentation can be a challenge. The week before Xmas is usually a fraught time for everyone: work and home. I sailed through it. I was getting up earlier to beat the traffic. It wasn't that it presented many problems for cycling in terms of time; work was thirty minutes away, door-to-door, come rain, shine, road works, acts of god or drivers with the collective IQ of a hamster. No, I just liked easy, hassle-free rides when I wanted to think.
The extra hour was well worth it. I sorted out my attitude to domination and submission. I was in favour. The memory of Tracy's face as she made me cry with pain as she pressured my nipples kept coming back to me. My shorts were not just damp from sweat when I dismounted. The exchange between Mr J and I when I needed to control him when we fucked was more intriguing. I hadn't tried to manipulate him like I had with Matt, he had just done as he was told. I speculated on my ability to do it cold as it were.
Perhaps Matt would be a good candidate for an experiment, I thought. When he wasn't making me think naughty thoughts with his voice, he was a bit of a weed. I had got him to orgasm with sexy Suzette. Could Miss Powderpuff do the same?
I was more of a "don't know" when it came to sex with women. I was definitely in favour of more sex with Tracy. She had turned me on like no one else. It was a definite damp-shorts situation just thinking about her and she was vying with George Clooney when my vibrator and I snuggled down of a night. Was it just her, or women in general though? I just didn't know. I had never thought about my own sex like that before. I liked her as a mate and sex was so much part of her personality that it seemed like a natural extension of any relationship anyone would have with her.
On golden showers I was probably against, I decided. It took two whole rides to sort it out though. I was intrigued that people liked watching me pee, I ought to talk to Luke about it if the opportunity arose. I didn't mind the taste of my own urine either. I had taken to dipping my finger into it when I relieved myself to check. Perhaps more often than I'd care to admit. But Mr J was right, there was a large degree of humiliation about it. I didn't think it was me. I could not imagine sitting under a stream of a bloke's hot piss and liking it.
So I was getting to my desk each morning, freshly showered and ready for the day ahead. I think my team would have drugs-tested the coffee which was ready for them when they arrived if they had had the equipment. A few quids worth of breakfast pastries from the Italian bakery on the corner soon got them up to my level of jocularity, however. More than one of them commented that they couldn't believe they were looking forwards to coming in each day.
They were a good bunch, and at this time of year we were popular with the whole company. More by accident than design I had recruited a number of Muslims and a couple of Jews. After tentative requests from them I had taken the suggestion to the bosses that we come in over the holiday period in exchange for flexibility around Ramadan, Passover and the like. It worked perfectly. We all took the bank holiday days. I mean everyone celebrates a bit at this time of year, Christianity has virtually been stripped from the commercial festival. The rest of the time we came in.
There were times when we were running the place. Knowing we were there meant other teams passed urgent work over to us. Members of my team who were up for it could therefore take on more responsibility and use their initiative. That was good for their promotion prospects, bonuses and the like so muttering about the lazy bastards we worked with was kept to a minimum.
I liked the environment we worked in. Where the rest of the firm was decked with cheap paper decorations purchased within a carefully-calculated departmental budget, our floor was more like an art gallery. I asked them all to bring their kids' pictures in along with anything else they thought might be relevant. The Buddha in a Santa hat was a bit incongruous, but as our only Buddhist had brought it to us, no one minded.
The only break in routine came when Steve called to ask me out to lunch. We took one of Adriano's small tables for our sandwiches. Turned out he was applying for a more senior job in the firm and wanted to use me as a personal reference. I was suitably touched.
'Surely they know you're useless already. Why do you need me to tell them?'
He was only vaguely amused. He was clearly taking the application seriously and we went through his draft together. I told him that it looked strong to me -- I regularly sat on job panels at work and was used to the process. I made one or two suggestions of places it could be tightened up and asked him what he thought his chances were.
'Dave's applying. He'll probably get it, but I thought I'd give it a shot. You know, for next time.'
'Don't do yourself down. Dave's probably spending all his time creeping to the bosses, but you're much better with people and one the whole that's what the panel should be looking for.'
The interview was scheduled for the last week of the year. Steve said they would probably make a decision the same day. We parted with a formal handshake and I went back to the office to write my warm appraisal of him. I emailed him a copy with a stiff warning that if a copy ever fell into the hands of the lads I would have his balls.
Wednesday was a red-letter day in so many ways. The evening before Mr J came over with a number of parcels. Two of them were anonymised packages from LuckyStroke my sex shop. I laid out the skirt, stockings and blouse an sent a photo to Matt. The third was from Amazon. I noticed Mr J was looking smug as I tugged the perforated strip to open it. I gave him a big hug when the collected works of PG Wodehouse fell out.
'Just a pre-Xmas thank you.'
I dipped into the first story. It wasn't as funny as I expected or the blurb promised. I did notice, however, that the next morning I had started greeting everyone with a happy "what ho" so it can't have been that bad.
That evening the lads and I almost fell in to he Crown and Anchor. Their rousing chorus of three-nil, three-nil, three-nil -- the rest of the lyrics followed a similar, predictable pattern let the rest of the punters know the reason. We had won for the first time ever. Admittedly the other side did seem either drunk or very hung over. I am sure I saw one of them vomiting at half-time. But we played outside ourselves and I pulled off some blinding saves, much to my own surprise. I was looking forward to reliving my genius over a pint, but the rest of the bar was given a pretty clear picture of my skill by the fact that periodically one or other of my team mates would raise my arm high and shout it to them.
George watched the scene from behind the bar on which he rested both hands and at least one of the rolls of fat surrounding his stomach. He was standing beneath the biggest bunch of mistletoe I had seen so far. Lest anyone missed that fact he kept nodding up at it when any woman glanced his way. When I waved at him he pointed to it directly.
Our,frankly under-appreciated, lap of honour completed we approached the fat barman. Steve spoke first.
'Five pints of bitter George, tonight we're drinking what she's drinking. She was fantastic.'
'Told you. Best tits I've seen in a long while. Just can't understand why it took her so long to show 'em off.'
Steve noticed the mistletoe and hoisted himself onto the bar and gave him a big, sloppy kiss. Luke and Piotr followed suit. Wot started to but by this time George was swatting at the air like a man surrounded by angry hornets. I blew him a kiss from the safety of the rear of the group.
'Other team didn't show up then?'
'Piss off you old pervert, they even had a substitute. And the ref was a tosser. We were good, but she was brilliant. You should have seen her diving at the feet of their striker when he was clean through.'
George scratched his head.
'I'm sure there's a joke in there somewhere but at the moment I'm at a complete loss. Here's your beers lads, glad to see victory has knocked some sense into you. Suzette this is for you.'
He handed over an Xmas-wrapped box and a card. I was puzzled.
'Some punter brought them in. Our Tracy spoke to him. Said he was lovely...'
He lengthened every vowel in the word.