The Long Resignation

Chapter 10 - Please

It was that same strange sense of pride that carried Nicole out of the bathroom and down the first hallway, out of the abandoned marketing department. The first eyes that fell upon her, took her down a peg, however. Reflexively, she cast her eyes downward instead of taking the proper time to read the gaze of the first people she'd walked past. Were they friendly or mocking? Did they know what had happened or did they not know? Was she already the subject of intensive gossip? She had no idea, but was proud enough that she managed to keep walking past the usual mobs of people that populated the floor.

"I can do this," she told herself, revisiting the plan in her head. "Walk in, grab purse, flip everyone the bird, gentle smile at Heather who is exempt from said bird, walk out like a goddamn legend -- the woman who punched Shimizu in the balls and flipped off the board. This will be my legacy."

She began flickering her fingers as she walked, loosening them up for her moment. She only needed two of them to be loose, but did not want to be seen flicking her middle fingers out and back and out and back like a loser while she walked. This way anybody who saw her finger movements would just assume she'd been typing too long, and quite frankly she had.

She dared to look up a bit more as she walked, gaining closer and closer to her destiny. She even looked side to side like a badass to read the faces of those around her. They weren't judging her, though. That was the tragedy of it. Nobody was even looking at her. Everybody was just going about their business with the usual focus on their own immediate needs, on getting such and such done so they could go home and watch Netflix. They weren't her enemies and they weren't her allies.

"I'm nothing to them, am I?" she asked herself, suddenly wishing that they were all gossiping mercilessly about her, wishing that they were booing her, or throwing wads of paper at her as she walked. She craved their resistance. Their apathy was agonizing.

"It's worse than that," she realized. "It isn't me at all. It's all of us. None of us mean anything to anyone here." She stopped, awkwardly, and looked around to confirm her epiphany. "Shit."

She allowed the moment to crest over her -- felt that uniquely unbearable pain that only the truth can cause, and suddenly the sharp, continuous flossing of the seam of her husband's boxer shorts against her anus was the least of her problems.

She breathed, refocused, and walked into the board room with a renewed sense of purpose.

Predictably, the meeting continued as if she'd never even left -- she wasn't important enough to cause a delay, not important enough for anyone to pass more than a brief glance as she came back in the room just to make sure it wasn't in fact someone who mattered.

One person, however, was staring directly at her.

Garret Shimizu ignored the meeting entirely. His gaze was fixed on Nicole. She wanted to be disgusted by it, to savour the moment before she told him and all of the other dinks who'd ruined her life to fuck off, but she couldn't.

He caught her eye and she stared back at him. He was barely recognizable. She paused to consider the likelihood that someone with the same basic physical characteristics as Garret had somehow taken his seat. It was the expression that was throwing her. He looked oddly passive, for the first time that she had ever seen him. His face was, itself, an apology and a plea. She held his gaze, and he flickered his eyes toward the open computer. On the screen, in all caps, it read:

"I'M VERY SORRY THAT I ACTED INAPPROPRIATELY. I PROMISE TO RESPECT YOUR BOUNDARIES FROM HERE ONWARD. PLEASE CONTINUE. PLEASE."

Nicole stared at the screen, then looked back to Garret. Then she looked back to the screen. Then she looked down at her own hands to see that her hands were as confused as she was, her middle fingers extended at her sides.

"Shit."

Heather turned briefly to Nicole and smiled, knowingly, her face still flushed from being upside down. It was perhaps the most confused that Nicole had been yet on this very, very confusing day, and sitting right beside the computer on the boardroom table was her purse.

"Shit."

Her fingers uncinched and flittered again. She reached for the purse and left, but quickly found that she hadn't, that her mind was just simulating. She was still there, standing awkwardly, still being stared at by Garret with his wounded puppy eyes. She reached for the purse and she left! Except she didn't...again.

"Fuck."

She sat down.

Clickety-click-click-click, it began.

Chapter 11 -- Make them Big

"Why am I here?" Leaning her face toward the backlit screen of the laptop felt very much like stepping into a spotlight to Nicole.

She decided, plain and simple, to give Garrett exactly what she knew he wanted.

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It wasn't until two hours into the meeting that Garrett became suddenly aware of the attention that he was receiving from the dark-haired woman at the end of the board table.

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"Brunette" she heard her boss whisper from beside her. She paused and looked at him. His eyes were still pleading, but less apologetic, more commanding once again.

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It wasn't until two hours into the meeting that Garrett became suddenly aware of the attention that he was receiving from the brunette at the end of the board table. She had been with the company for 8 years but had never had the courage to let him catch her staring. She had wanted him that entire time, but the circumstances had always been tricky.

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"Eight years? How old is she?"

Nicole took a minute to catch her breath, to weigh the many personality attributes and presumptions informing her boss's decision to ask her that. "I've come this far," she told herself. "I can humour him."

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She had been with the company for two semesters of her college co-op now but had never had the courage to let him catch her staring. She had wanted him that entire time, but the circumstances had always been tricky. Her body was aching for him now, though. Every inch of her long lean torso was surging with that strange intangible desire beyond accounting. Her skin was uncomfortably itchy, flushed with blood as it was. Concentration was impossible. Involuntarily she found herself rubbing the tops of her cleavage.

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"How big are her boobs? Make them big."

"For fuck's sake," Nicole thought, and through her rage came the epiphany she'd denied herself since the morning in her husband's arms.

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I quit.

I am worth more than this company can value.

I am better than this hierarchy will ever allow me to be.

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She felt at once, exceedingly proud of herself. Garrett eyebrows flinched upward and his face sank -- as if he could not possibly comprehend what might have set Nicole off.

Nicole stood, grabbed her purse, and looked at him one last time.

He smiled condescendingly and opened his mouth as if to speak. She balled her fingers into a fist at this, however, and reached back as if to strike at his dick once again, and he recoiled, silently, in reflexive terror. She walked out of the board room for the very last time, and in the darkness that blanketed it, nobody, other than Garrett himself and possibly Heather, even noticed her leaving. The meeting simply went on, just as they always do.

Chapter 12 -- That's Better

"Is it possible to feel everything at once," Nicole wondered as she buzzed herself into the lobby of her apartment building.

Her finger trembled and twitched as she reached it out to press the button to summon the elevator down to her. Her skin felt itchy and warm, but she was also quite sure that she was shivering. Her hunger was so great that she deeply regretted not stopping for junk food on the way home, but at the same time she was quite sure she might throw up at any given moment and weighed the nausea of the elevator against the fatigue of the stairs in terms of which would be the most likely to trigger that. Her skin was buzzing. Her mind was buzzing.

Like a quick cut in the editing of a movie, the next moment she held awareness of was stepping out of the elevator. She turned the corner, and though she knew such a thing wasn't remotely possible, she was quite sure that she could smell home, and she let that aroma pull her with the kind of faith and certainty that, in this moment, she couldn't credibly ascribe to any other single though in her buzzing brain.

Opening the door brought her back a little bit. She closed the door behind her like a horror movie heroine with a horde of demon at her heels. She turned the deadbolt to assure that the world outside couldn't press their way in, and again she started to settle a little bit more.

She kicked off her shoes, and lumbered into the kitchen, knowing he'd be there, the air thick with the scent of lentil curry, what he knew was her favorite. And there he was, stirring.

She stopped and stared at him directly in that way that she knew always made him uncomfortable. He turned.

"Hey."

"Hey."

His face looked loose somehow, hard to read, his eye contact furtive and inscrutable. He opened his mouth again, but it was noiseless. He closed it and looked at the ground instead.

Nicole reached down and unzipped her skirt, letting it fall to the ancient faux-linoleum that was the floor of her kitchen. She caught his eye.

"You don't have to...." he began.

"I absolutely don't," she interrupted, sliding the hateful boxer shorts down the length of her lower half before reaching down and picking them up. Holding full eye contact with the increasingly confused Caleb, she walked over to the stove that he was standing at, withdrew a lighter from the nearest drawer and set them alight in front of him.

"I am so confused..." he responded as she tossed the flaming hell-undies into the sink, watching them burn for a moment before dousing the flames with tap water.

"Take off your pants," she finally replied. "And you won't be confused anymore."

"But...." he began, but paused without interruption, unsure even of the question that he might want to ask.

She turned to him earnestly, her eyes glistening with a thin veneer of tears. "I love you dumbass," she stated bluntly. "Take off your pants."

Caleb turned toward the stove to reach for the element, explaining "just let me..."

Nicole did not wait. As Caleb turned down the element she turned herself down to the floor, elegantly sliding his sweat pants down in perfect synchronization of height with her own knees, each hitting the faux-linoleum floor at the exact instant.

She looked up at his eyes, his bare member swinging in and out of her gaze in the process.

"No underpants, huh?" she asked.

"Laundry day," he smiled. "Plus some asshole set the pair I had planned for today on fire."

"Fucking arsonists," she grinned, shaking her head back and forth to show the depth of her condemnation.

Then she reached up and wrapped the fingers of her right hand around his member, feeling in her grasp the surge of blood through his body emboldening it by the second.

Slowly, she stroked it, her grasp soft enough to lurch the loose skin backward and forward like a slow-cascading wave of purple flesh up to the tip, then back to the base, then up to the tip, and back to the base, each movement larger and further than the last as Caleb's erection took on a familiar shape.

Hungrily, she opened her mouth and pulled it inside of her lips, wrapping them around the tip and suckling enthusiastically at the head. Caleb twitched at first, a tight seizing of muscles that rippled all the way down from his shoulders to legs, but the pleasure of the sensation quickly found him and his muscles eased back down as he closed his eyes, and layed his right hand gently upon the top of her head.

Nicole opened wider, easing her head forward slowly to take in more of him, swirling her tongue across the penetrating tip of his penis as she did so with a loud sloppy sucking noise. She closed her eyes as well, honing all of her attention onto him, onto this, as though all of the chaotic energy of quite possibly the worst/best day of her life could be channelled and focused through the actions of her open mouth and the emotions that drove her onward.

She sucked in hard as she eased her head back from the base of his penis dragging the flesh back with her until all but the head was outside of her mouth again, and that she sucked the hardest as Caleb tensed up again in delight and just a little bit of pain and a loud spatter of saliva could be heard slapping against the faux-linoleum. Nicole did not care. She wanted to be messy -- she wanted to be without reserve or consideration -- without thought.

"Careful with the teeth" she reminded herself a few times for fear of losing control completely, and she moved her head back toward the base again, her tongue extended just enough to slather along the bottom of Caleb's penis. Another spatter of saliva slap and she drew her head backward again, establishing her rhythm slowly.

She pushed herself more upright so that Caleb's penis was beneath her a bit and she sucked back and forth, then crouched lower to the ground again and wrapped her hands across the back of Caleb's buttocks pulling with her arms as she sucked up and in, then gently clawing at his behind with her fingernails, as she slid back down.

She decided to speed up then. She had wanted to take longer at this, to make it last, but she found herself struck by an eagerness she'd never yet known, and she could feel in her mouth that he was eager as well.

Caleb moaned with pleasure as Nicole slid back and forth and up and down and side to side, each thrust of her mouth finding a new angle and pressing the shaft of his penis in a slightly different way, a slightly different sensation. The pool of saliva was all over the floor now, her knees bathing in it, sliding it, struggling to find traction in it, but she kept going, kept finding a way to push her entire body into each advancement of her mouth. As his member started twitching and tightening, she grabbed hold of Caleb's behind to brace herself again, gripping so tightly that his cheeks spread wide just as the muscles engaged and the surge passed through him culminating in three consecutive bursts that exploded in the back of Nicole's throat, before his penis twitched mechanically, then surged forth with a pair of smaller bursts. Caleb drew back a bit then pressed his whole body forward once more for another large burst that filled her mouth completely, and left her drooling his cum from the sides of her mouth even after she swallowed.

"Holy shit" he gasped, passing his hand down her hair to her cheek. "That was intense."

"Mmm hmmm" Nicole replied gently sucking at his fading erection.

"I need to sit down" Caleb sighed.

"Nuhhh uhhh" Nicole responded, her arms still wrapped behind him, her mouth still enveloping his manhood.

"Uh...please?"

In response she started to move her mouth and down his penis again, gently, patiently.

"I might need a few minutes before we can...."

She pulled him out of her mouth with a loud wet popping noise. "Take your time. I'm not going anywhere." She resumed sucking him.

For five minutes this continued. The usual release of passion and tension that came with a partner's orgasm did not diminish. She was determined. More than that, she wanted him inside of her and she wouldn't wait a second longer than she had to. In silence, half-naked on her knees on the sopping wet floor she persisted. Caleb, confused and contented, simply stroked her hair and waited.

And then they both felt it. The familiar hardness began to take shape. Nicole, even at the edge of triumph, decided to draw things out a bit, and stood to her feet.

"Uh," Caleb protested.

"Take off my shirt," she demanded. "Slowly."

He didn't hesitate, but his body was inarticulate and his fingers trembled at the buttons.

"Slower," she insisted, and he complied.

As he finished with the buttons on her blouse she reached pulled back her arms and slammed them forward, her hands against his shoulders, pushing him to the back wall of the kitchen with a loud thud.

Nicole opened her blouse with a swift jerking motion that carried it off her shoulders, cascading to the floor behind her and revealing her sheer navy blue brassiere. Through the translucent fabric, Caleb could see the protrusion of Nicole's nipples.

Caleb did not even say "ow," instead finding that his breathing was accelerating even more rapidly and his erection swelling painfully.

"Get on your knees and lick me."

Caleb complied immediately, only flinching slightly when the cold of the saliva pool caught his knees off-guard. He pressed his face up between her thighs, sniffing as he did so the stale mix of dried sweat and new sweat, mingled as they were with her juices. She grabbed him by the ears, one in each hand and pulled him up into her. He opened his mouth, parting her moist labia with a deft motion of his lips and tickling her clitoris with the tip of his tongue.

Her grip on his ears tightened in response and her lungs surged to inhale as her shoulders rolled backwards in ecstasy. Caleb slid his tongue downward, running circles around the outer edges of her opening and her hips circled with them in parallel.

"Yes," she cried.

Caleb slipped his tongue back higher to press her clitoris upward, pressing it hard before drawing his tongue back a bit before gently swishing it back and forth from side to side, moving her bright pink flesh every which way like a frenzied ballerina. He ran his hand slowly up the inside of her leg, marvelling at how far down the wetness had run across her thigh, nearly to her knee. Upward he massaged before at last reaching the top and, extending his middle finger, he penetrated her.

Nicole jumped, holding just enough restraint to keep from falling entirely. Caleb continued to dance the ballerina with his tongue whilst probing the insides with his finger, curling his knuckle to rub the front of her vagina with his fingertip stretching her whole orifice to new degrees of openness as he did so.

It was all that Nicole needed. It was more than Nicole needed. But she longed for the intimacy of his penis inside of her.

"Stop," she stuttered.

Caleb stopped.

"Stand up."

Caleb stood up.

"Grab the scissors."

Caleb's face, dripping wet all around his mouth and chin, showed a second's hesitation. As a general rule, men are somewhat reserved about any situation involving scissors and they're own exposed dicks. He trusted his wife, however, and he trusted the moment, so he grabbed the scissors from the nearby drawer.

"Cut this off of me," she commanded, slipping one thumb under her bra strap for demonstration.

Nicole withdrew her thumb and, cautiously, Caleb ran one open blade under the strap, pausing only when Nicole flinched at the touch of cold steel across her warm flesh. Caleb closed his grip and the scissor action severed the first strap with a loud *snip.* Nicole smiled at him, and he smiled back before moving to the second strap. She didn't flinch this time, holding eye contact with him and smirking like the Mona Lisa herself. *Snip.* The second strap fell. Caleb circled around her, running his hand along the remnants of her brassiere, seeking the weak spot to sever the horizontal tension that held it still together. He found it at the back close to the clasps. An area without underwire -- just dense fabric. He slid his blade up behind it, pausing a moment to hover in anticipation.