Between a Rock and a Hard Place

And she took it.

Because it was there. That would be the explanation during the hangover tomorrow. That was if Lenore had to explain herself anyway.

She had this thought that she could do better. As a vagina-bearer herself, she thought she could bring more attention to parts other than the clitoris. She pictured all the details, all the patterns she could do to send Becky to oral heaven.

This was one part of the chain reaction that lead Lenore to defeat everything, from fear to bashfulness, and rise to her knees and kiss Becky right on her pussyhole.

Her lips dipped into heat and wetness.

She really wanted to taste it. The two girls had guessed it before she did in a way.

Lenore kissed around.

Gave a shy lick.

Up to the clit, around which she enclosed her lips.

It tasted a lot like a penis. Warmer. The smell of soap was still too fresh to tell.

"You know what's the best?" Jill cut in. "It's feeling two mouths instead of one." And she turned Becky on her side, pulled her leg up. Becky spread her buttcheeks. She was breathing hard.

Jill put her tongue on her anus. Lenore put her mouth back on her pussy.

It was exhilarating to hear the moans change, go to a less controlled place, less dominant.

Lenore was pleasuring someone for the first time in a very, very long time. She had quite a lot of character motivation after all. So the playlist went on and the new woman she had chased all day opened her drowsy eyes.

"Did you?" Jill asked Becky.

"Yes." Her voice trembling.

Jill wetted her middle finger and pushed it into her asshole.

Lenore stopped everything she was doing to crane her head and watch.

"You like anal?" Jill asked her.

"I... No, I... just..."

"Stick your tongue as far as you can in her pussy."

Hesitantly, Lenore did what she had been told.

She felt uncomfortable doing it. Stared at.

Yet she fought against a moan as she felt Jill's finger through the thin membrane of flesh start to slide up and down. She had no particular reason to moan at that, it didn't feel any good, yet it was moan-worthy.

"Suck on her clit now," Jill ordered once Lenore had enjoyed it so much her eyes had closed.

Becky squealed frankly as the tongue in her pussy nervously left only to be replaced by Jill's thumb. She squirmed, being sucked and double penetrated and stoned.

"The quicker you make her cum, the quicker we can do the same to you," Jill pointed out.

Chills coursed down Lenore's loins. Jill had said you make her cum, not we.

I'M gonna make a woman come.

Knowing this was delightful. Lenore loved it at first try. The only reason she asked herself What the fuck am I doing? was that it turned her on to wonder so.

The answer was I don't care. The best answer in life.

She reached for Becky's chest and caressed the curves of her breasts. But she shied back when she felt a nipple ring. She was scared to hurt her. To rip the thing off somehow. It was a stupid phobia. Her own ears were pierced, but still, she couldn't get over this.

Instead she put even more thinking into her tongue moves. She wanted to make her come as best she could. She wanted to make her holes clench real hard over Jill's fingers. She remembered how Brian had groaned the one (only) time she let him penetrate her ass. She even dared to remember the delicious shame of taking his cum inside of it.

Becky collapsed a little more on the couch and mewled. Lenore licked faster, suckled brazenly and suddenly everything within her mouth stiffened and throbbed, everything without thrashed around in submission.

There. She was making a woman come.

GOOD BYE

Some spirits had left before they could witness it.

Good.

The start of an orgasm was clear, its end rarely. Becky's lasted for quite some time. Lenore only slowed down when Jill came to squeeze her tongue against her tongue. It was stupid after all that happened but she felt a little wavering about this half French kiss.

The slick intertwining didn't end up in a full French kiss, or any kiss. They finished Becky off together and it just ended.

The trio separated, thanklessly, sprawled about.

"I need a bowl," Becky panted into a cushion.

And that was it. Even the playlist ended.

Lenore could still feel the pussy and the spit in her mouth, her body electrified inside her clothes. All it would take was for Becky to add, "And I want you two naked, now!"

Then Lenore wouldn't have worried that maybe she smelled too much of sweat, that maybe they'd find lint between her toes when they'd remove her socks, that maybe they'd want to finger her ass too, that maybe she was just a klutz who barely knew how to make love to a man, let alone two experienced women.

And fast they would all be naked, snuggling against her, oh so fucking nude in return against their skins. And they would FUCK! And she would not just be passively sandwiched between them, she'd put an overwhelming abandon into it and an energy she didn't know she still had in her at this time of night. It would be the best feeling ever this unlimited outpouring of sex partners.

As promised, at some point the two girls would lick her from mound to tailbone. If they did it right it would make her ejaculate a few drops and it wouldn't gross them out. They'd purr just as sweetly as her.

Lenore would surprise herself as all the colors of fuck would go by. She wouldn't ask for permission before pushing two fingers inside the asshole she'd found in front of her face. She wanted to do that, do it her way. It would feel even better when a tit would brush her cheek and she'd twist her neck to suck on the nipple. Just in time to enjoy the tongue making her clitoris cum one more time.

The end of their threesome would be just as unclear as the end of a female orgasm. Their eventual crashing down on the carpet wouldn't feel like Jill and Becky holding each other and inconspicuously leaving Lenore apart. No, they would be still three and together and within five minutes, Lenore would want to go again.

With a grin, she would sit up, reach down and cup the first vagina she would find. She would masturbate the girl, Jill or Becky, she didn't care. She wouldn't care if they were sore or not. Her fingers would be so effective on that clit. A fast circling rub.

"This is how I masturbate," she would reveal.

"We created a monster," they would say, the first girl cumming from it in less than thirty seconds and the other already begging for the same treatment: "Oh please, me me me, masturbate me like I am you!"

And she would, making two people come in just under a minute. And then having them vanquished, she'd gather her clothes, her purse and would leave the apartment with one last look at her two friends passed out on the floor.

Instead Lenore woke up, still in her clothes, with the bad taste of drinking spree in her mouth. All of her joints that had been in contact with the floor while she slept were aching. The sun was rising, in September it meant something like 7am.

Becky was still on the couch, still naked, looking down at the portable console Jill was playing on.

"I really should go," Lenore whispered.

Jill didn't look up from the screen. "You can stay if you want."

"No, really, I better go."

"Same time next week?"

This time the betraying pause was for a "S-sure."

*****

Sunday (nine days)

The instant the door of her apartment closed, Lenore threw all her clothes around and ran to her bed, desperate to cum. With her fingers, with her dildo, without a condom (she didn't care) and without lube (she didn't need any).

Only after it done she thought about getting some sleep. But the sun was up. Too much up.

She engaged The Plan (that never worked): force herself to stay awake all day not to mess up her sleep schedule.

The only time she wore clothes that Sunday was when she went outside to buy batteries in one shop, and then lube in another so that she wouldn't have to face the raising eyebrows of some cashier.

The rest of the day was nudist. Even when she ate. Even when Kate called. Even when she vacuumed the living-room. Even when she saw her reflection in the full-length mirror of her bathroom.

Among other wonders, she discovered the delicious torture of touching herself on and off throughout the afternoon without cumming. She discovered its eventual bone-aching result, which was cumming twice in a row, twice as intensely.

She tasted her own squirt. Out of curiosity.

She masturbated so much she forgot she was masturbating.

And all day she had the excuse that she was too exhausted to write.

Not enough to read obsessively, though. When she was not touching herself, she read. When she was touching herself, she kinda read too.

ONE DAY MY PHONE RANG AND I WAS SURPRISED BECAUSE THE RINGTONE WAS SMASH MOUTH'S ALL STAR, MY FAVOURITE SONG.

IT WAS THE BOGDANOFFS, THEY OFFERED ME COUPONS FOR A SHREK-THEMED WEDDING

Ok neeext.

People's creativity filled her mood to the brim.

She laughed to tears several times. Dracula told her to buy his mixtape and it killed her. The Zodiac killer once called the cops to burp the alphabet and Lenore was dead. Not that it was particularly funny and clever, the limits between stupid and brilliant blurred, or lost sense. Some notes seemed to respond to each other. It felt like an escalating conversation with the world of ideas and her mind. She felt part of something.

Around 9pm, she told herself she would lie down for a while. Just ten minutes. Fatal error. She woke up in the middle of the night, tired, pins and needles in one arm, angry at herself, hungry and so thirsty her tongue was like cardboard.

She read:

DICKPICS FROM HEAVEN, about a woman who gets a dickpic from her ex-boyfriend who died trying to suck his own penis.

She didn't like it.

And then it was time to go to work.

*****

Monday (eight days)

It was difficult to concentrate on the three Excel sheets on her screen.

Whenever she'd realize she had closed her eyes for longer than thirty seconds and her thoughts had drifted toward the bizarre, she would think, I'm falling asleep, and it would awake her.

To clear her head, she went to put back the suggestion box next to the coffee machine.

No sign of Jill or Becky as her gaze embraced the space and she sighed. Only indifferent faces. Some new. Down at the task. A drizzle of keyboard keys. On her way back to her desk, a portion of the wall around the door to the copy room had changed.

A mild indifference would have left her in her slumberous state if she hadn't noticed that it was the same cheap print she had on the walls of her kitchen. Only...stretched out?

The idea of hallucinating from sleep deprivation shocked her awake.

She looked at the wall from every angle. Eventually recognized it was real. Out of place but real. Anyway, workers probably came and did it during the weekend. She didn't have time, there was someone at her desk.

A woman she had never seen before. In her forties. Unsmiling. Caught in the act of leaving a note under her mouse.

"Hi?" Lenore said.

ELIZA WANTS TO SEE YOU

"Hi, Lena. Portia Keller. HR." She extended a hand, Lenore shook it. "Eliza wants to see you, let's go."

Unusual procedure. Had it been any other manager, Lenore would have freaked out. But Eliza was...an okay person. Who had always been somewhat supporting. Or bubbly. Or nosy. With at least some attempt at humor. At Lenore's humor, that is.

So the silence was not tense in the elevator up to Management. "How's your story going?" was the only small talk. "Steady", Lenore's only reply before the hushed hum of the upper floors.

Management wasn't a bullpen but a series of closed doors. The first right out of the elevator being Eliza's office.

Behind bay windows further down the corridor, a man was looking miserable for all to see, sitting across from two women who looked formal, had dressed formal and spoke formal.

He was presented his severance package. No need to read lips.

Portia was the only one on Management floor who did not look at the scene. Even Eliza got caught staring when Lenore entered her office. The other woman closed the door and left, apparently her job was done.

"Ah, Eleonore, I wanted to see you, sit down, have some cookies."

Mrs. Goddard made them, to celebrate something unspecified. Lenore took one from the bowl next to the monitor and wrapped it in a napkin. "For after lunch," she explained.

"No, go ahead, they're gluten-free."

"Really, I just had a snack," Lenore lied.

"So how's your story going?"

"Surprising."

"You found surprises in your box?"

Eliza let her the time to giggle at that. Lenore had a fugitive vision of her dildo all the way up her pussy and it made her buttocks twitch.

"Any penis pics yet?"

"How did you guess?"

"I re-read Sawn-off Shotgun Romance the other night. Such a good title."

"Heh, thanks."

"So, I talked to Prudence, as promised, I'll send you her e-mail."

"Oh my God thank you so much for that!"

Prudence Fleischer worked for HarperCollins. According to Eliza, the kind of person who can get your manuscript move from the bottom of the pile to the top of a desk.

Lenore had been the first surprised to learn that publishers still read manuscripts at all.

"You're welcome, from there it's up to you to make it work. But anyways, I got a word from Legal, they'll need your draft once you're done."

The smiles stopped. Those dickheads were messing with the deadline.

Lenore tried to bargain:

"Why? I'll put some warning myself, if needed. It's not like I'll go into anything extreme, I mean you know me."

"It's not about censoring, you know, they just want to clear the whole thing, the idea of taking suggestions from other employees is nice, it's "corporate", you know. But what they don't want is some schmuck having afterthoughts because all of a sudden he thinks he knows more about copyright than us."

"Ok."

Eliza's smile came back. "Don't worry, it's their job to be paranoid."

"Ok. Fine."

"I'll forward you the name of your mediator."

"Couldn't they tell me in person?"

"Oh don't ask..."

"So, that's it?"

"Yeah."

"Alright. Whatever."

They paused and it allowed them to take a look at the firing process still going fifteen feet from them.

"It's um...Karl, right?" Lenore asked.

"Yes, our Carl of Management."

The two women, she didn't know however. They were from outside. Deep Green Alliance outsourced firing people.

A security guard was now waiting by the door, ready to escort Carl Winthrop off the premises after he cleared his desk.

"They had to let him go, we just engaged our new diversity program. Came from up there, you know..." Eliza pointed up, almost rolling her eyes.

At the speed of thoughts, Lenore pondered if she should observe that, if she remembered correctly, it left only women in the department. She pondered the level of closeness between Eliza of Management and her, if closeness there really was.

And she said nothing. The policeman in her head was tapping his foot.

Instead, on her way out, with her cookie in her hand, she just smiled, or winced.

"Close the door behind you," Eliza said.

"Ok."

"Have a nice day."

"Have a nice day."

She closed the door behind as asked, just as Carl was banging his fist on the desk twice. Hard enough to be heard through the glass.

That's the only thing he did really.

She looked away.

Management floor didn't have a breakroom, only a sideboard near the elevator. Some chairs. Blue-sky-white-clouds wallpaper. Portia Keller was waiting there, standing in a corner, still not staring at the main event of the morning.

Lenore had to meet her gaze.

"Come and have a coffee with that delicious cookie," the woman said.

"Oh no, I--"

"Please."

She hesitated.

This stranger was filling two mugs marked of the Deep Green logo, invited her to sit on a stool with her.

Lenore sat down and took a reluctant bite. She doubled over and immediately went to toss the rest in the trashcan. "It's stale," she explained.

"Spit it out."

"No, it's alr--"

"Spit. She's not looking."

Hiding herself and her embarrassment, Lenore spat the ball of floury muck down the plastic bag of the trashcan, then Portia gave her her coffee. She swished some in her mouth and spewed it in the sink. That's how bad the cookie tasted.

There was an untouched bowl of them on the countertop.

Portia was watching from her stool, blowing on her steaming coffee.

Eliza burst out of her office. She stood in the doorway, her hand gripping the handle, asked, "Is everything alr--" but Portia cut her:

"Go back to work, Eliza, I got this. I'm having a nice conversation with my new friend from Accounting."

There was some hostility to glimpse. Not just from Eliza. From both women. Lenore stooped in between. She had no idea what the dynamic was, who reported to whom. Portia, the older of the two, shrugged off. Eliza glared, went back to work without a word going through her clenched teeth.

"So, how's your story going?"

Lenore snapped, "I haven't started yet."

"Did you know him?" The HR woman was talking about Carl who was walking to the elevator, a security guard's hand on his shoulder.

"No."

That coffee was the strongest Lenore had ever had. There was a box of sugar cubes three arm lengths from her but she didn't want to move and break their gaze.

She gulped down everything, like as many punches to her brain.

"I heard you went out with Jill and Becky on Saturday."

"Yeah, I... How did you know--"

"I hear a lot of things."

Lenore didn't let her frustration show, partly because she had guessed Portia was getting to her point:

"Actually you can hear so much in this building. Before you go back to your workstation, you should get an ear by the drywall right next to the dolphin poster and the door to Johnson's office. In front of the water cooler. By a strange particularity in the architecture, you can hear the conversation from a certain spot of the HR floor. I've heard your name a lot lately."

"Why are you telling me this--"

"Because it would be unfortunate if you don't have the time to finish your Halloween story. I want to read it."

"I'm getting fired?" Lenore's voice broke.

"I don't know, it's out of my power. But I guess you better go and be productive!" She stood up. "I'll show you out."

Lenore struggled with what to say, what to ask, she struggled against a sob. From her stool to the elevator doors, then standing in the elevator on their way down.

And it was Portia who broke the silence. Just before the braking and the digitized ding, she passed an arm around her shoulders and said, "Will you do something for me, Lena?" The doors opened. "I want to see how you manage on a harder level."

Before them appeared the pasted blue skies & white clouds, the stools, the bowl of cookies. Lenore thought it was the wrong floor but Portia steered her out and it was definitely the thick carpeting of Management and its noise of walls and doors. The elevator went in circle, she would have thought if Portia would have let her the time to, and if it would have made sense. But the woman was pushing her forward gently, two hands on her shoulders and Carl was still in the office with no frosted windows, with the two women. She could have thought he had the same elevator malfunction if Portia had given her time for paradoxes, but Portia was behind her walking her to Eliza's office again, opening the door for her again.