Impact 02: of Collusion

The "Impact" series began as a collaboration with ButteredCrumpet who posted our original versions* as "Impact of Collision".

For those who pay attention to such things: When Sarah is alone the story is in the past tense. When Claire and Sarah are together the story is in present tense.

Special thanks to HaltWhoGoesThere for proof reading this chapter - repeatedly.

I was lying in bed, my panties soaked, in a cold puddle of my own making, the wisps of a dream already drifting out of reach. It was still way too early. I'd woken up touching myself and cumming hard enough to make my back cramp and seize.

'What did I call out?' I wondered.

I'd never masturbated in my sleep before. I'd still been so turned on I couldn't help touching myself again. I struggled to recall the dream. Bits popped into my head, of watching or being watched? Of paintings and... kneeling behind... Claire? She had pressed her face against a wall...

I was pushing my fingers over my hard clit, enjoying the deliciously greasy wet feel when I remembered the movie - and the dream came rushing back. The gallery, her date watching, Claire baring her ass... the feel of her round cheeks in my hands, licking her. from behind.

"Jesus!"

I stopped myself. Wiped my hand on my belly.

'Bad movies and pent-up frustration,' I told myself as I hopped out of bed. 'It's just been too long.'

As strange and disturbing as it was, I was able to shake it off.

My Sunday was otherwise uneventful, a phone call with my mom, brunch with my friends Darci and Kwasi in Fort Greene at a place inside an old liquor store. I stopped for eggplant and other fresh veggies before heading back to the food desert that is Midtown and then cooked a big briami for the week while cleaning my apartment.

'You're a hell-raiser, Sarah Beth,' I told myself as I folded my laundry.

I went to bed that night still feeling wound up and frisky. I pushed down my panties and kicked them off, spread my legs, and began to touch myself. I fantasized about being fucked outside, about being watched, of being fucked bent over the back of a car in front of passing traffic. All the hits. Nothing worked. I tried fantasizing about sucking Danny off. I even pictured sucking William's perfectly hairless balls and penis - but if anything, that had the opposite effect. I found my imagination drifting to the ladies' room at work, of being caught - a variation on a fantasy I've had since high school - but being scolded and made to finish by an older woman was dangerously close to the dream.

I finally gave up, so frustrated I thought I might cry.

I was happy to get back to work Monday. I showed up almost an hour early. Spent the time going through my hard drive and clearing junk off my desktop. By the time my boss Keith and coworker Ben arrived, I was cleaning the office. It was time well spent. Turns out we were on deadline with a week's worth of long late nights ahead of us. I was happy for the pressure, it made my week go by fast.

I had thought about Claire on and off, our funny and friendly real life interactions, and considered calling her or dropping by the gallery. I thought about seeing if she wanted to meet for dinner or catch a show. The Go! Team was playing the Bowery, I wondered if she'd like them; tried to picture her jumping around in that crowd. I couldn't really see it.

I invited Darci and Kwasi instead, but they already had plans. I thought about inviting Kip from work, but as much as I hoped he'd come, I knew he'd already have something ten times more fabulous planned. In the end I chickened out and didn't go.

Before I knew it, it was Friday again. We'd finished the off-site I'd been working to prepare for all week. It was for staff from a bunch of other departments and was exciting. I got to present some of the work I'd done with Keith as well as some of the work I'd done on my own before I started at the Times. There were a couple glitches, but nothing major went wrong, and Keith congratulated me, saying he thought it went really well overall. It had already been a long day, and I felt spent but there was an obligatory dinner and drinks afterwards, making it even longer.

They took us to a steak place in TriBeCa. I'm a vegetarian, so while everyone else gorged, I picked massive sizzling cubes of lardon off an iceberg wedge, despite having told the waiter I'm a vegetarian. And while the crowd was friendly, they were mostly a decade or two older. As far as Friday nights go, I really wasn't feeling it. But for Keith's sake I wanted to be polite so I continued on to a bar nearby with the group for a couple more drinks.

The atmosphere at the bar was much more relaxed, everyone started to loosen up a bit with a few drinks under their belts. Kip was there, so I was having a great time until he abandoned me to chat up a beautiful young guy from the Business section and one of the guys from the Real Estate section began to hover. Suddenly I was really looking forward to going home.

I was psyching myself up to tell Keith I was going to leave, when I saw Claire arrive with a group of women. My heart jumped at the sight of her, but I also had the urge to hide. I didn't have to though, she was facing the wrong way. I watched her through breaks in the crowd as she and her friends moved towards an open booth. She looked a bit out of place. The other girls were pretty, but looked... bridge-and-tunnel.

It was a bachelorette party. They were super rowdy and one of the women wore a tell-tale plastic tiara. Claire wasn't rowdy like the rest, but she looked like she was having a good time. Again I was struck by her beauty. She was a lovely woman. Her friends were pretty, but Claire, with her long blonde hair pulled back tight and her tall lean yoga-figure stood out like a swan amongst geese. I wondered what her life was like, tried to picture where she might live, if she had met anyone nice yet.

I got another drink, when a woman named Kathy from the Style section came over and started talking about something she wanted us to work on with her.

'Not now, Kathy... it's Friday night,' I thought.

Part of what I was up against at work was that my department was very new and very small, just my boss Keith and me, and Ben, our code geek. And almost no one at the Times understood what we did or what to do with us. Until a month ago they all seemed to think we were the bar-chart specialists, now we were the map people. Kathy was especially clueless, she wanted help with a PowerPoint presentation, which is not at all what we do.

"Yeah," I told her earnestly, "let's check in on Monday to discuss it further."

I was pretty sure Claire hadn't seen me, and while I wanted to go say hi, I didn't want to intrude on her fun. I was also feeling a little overserved and figured I'd better make my exit before I said something rude to Kathy or stupid to one of the others, but I urgently needed to pee first.

While waiting in the queue at the toilets, someone crashed into me from behind, I turned, ready to give them hell.

"I think it's really your turn to run into me? But who's counting..." Claire quips, laughing and smiling. "What is my Sarah doing here?"

"Claire! Oh, I'm... obligatory after-conference drinks?" I explained as she embraced me and greeted me with a kiss on each cheek - much wetter and warmer than the last two times, and again, dangerously close to my mouth. A sliver of an image from my dream surprises me, making me blush, but it's gone as quickly as it appeared. Claire is smiling brightly, eyes wide.

"New York is the biggest small town in the world, right?" she asks, flushed and wet lipped, her eyes looking a little glassy.

I suspect I'm not the only one feeling overserved.

"I saw you with your group," I admit, "but I didn't want to intrude-"

"Say, do you want to get out of here, maybe get a bite?" she asks, glancing around nervously, a slightly desperate look in her eyes. "The bachelorette has started asking about my date for the wedding. Turns out ALL of her friends have brothers they want to set me up with."

"Ergh, don't tell me you're the only single lady in that group?"

"Yeah... Jessica is wonderful. She's engaged to one of my best friends from school, but I don't really know any of her friends, and I'm really not keen to be a date for some Jersey Shore type... oh God, you're not from Jersey are you?!"

"No," I laugh, "Buffalo, which is worse."

"No," she says firmly, giving me an appraising look. "Definitely much better."

"Well," I stammer, blushing under her warm regard, "I'm done with my thing, I was just about to sneak out when you caught me. Sooo... where do you want to go?"

"Anywhere really; anywhere that's not this fucking bachelorette party... Hey," she started, abruptly shifting tone and making a comically apologetic face, "do you think you could, uhh, maybe pretend to be a drunk friend I need to take home, so, you know, it won't seem like I'm ditching?"

It wasn't a big stretch actually. While I had only meant to have a couple drinks, thanks to Kip I'd had a few. And thanks to Kathy I'd stress-guzzled my last one.

As I hadn't really eaten and the cocktails were strong, and I am a total lightweight... I am deep in my cups.

"I can be your drunk," I tell her dryly, eliciting a big smile, "but first I have to pee."

We're at the front of the queue and the door opens for me. I'm a little bit surprised when Claire ducks in with me, but she puts herself at the sink and opens her purse, looking at herself in the mirror as if it were nothing at all.

"So what's new with InfoPorn?" she asks as she examines her lips.

My panties are half down, but I stop short. InfoPorn was the studio name I'd used when I got out of school, before I got hired at the Times. (My mother is still furious about the name - and even though Keith loves it, I was careful not to mention it in my presentation to our Grey Lady colleagues earlier.)

Claire is looking at me in the mirror. I am still hovering in surprise over the toilet seat. A sly smile steals across her face in the mirror.

"I Google stalked you," she admits. "There aren't that many Sarahs doing 'information visualization' at the Times - you're a big deal!"

I blush at the compliment, or maybe because I'm still hovering bare-assed, and she's smiling at me in the reflection. I continue to pull my panties down and lower myself to the seat, mumbling something about awards being stupid.

I'd googled Claire as well of course, finding her gallery online, looking at her picture in the directory, sleek and stylish, and then pages of pics of her at parties on social blogs; New York, Paris, London... Looking at them, her beautiful outfits and fashionable friends, I had wondered if I was jealous of her, if perhaps that's what the dream was about. She is so much more beautiful and stylish than I will ever be. I can feel myself blushing scarlet now at the thought of the dream, of my subconscious... peculiar fixation with this beautiful woman. I am overwhelmed by a feeling of being ugly and stupid, have to fight the impulse to hide my face in my hands.

Don't get me wrong, I am proud of my looks. I dated the most popular guy in school and was the Homecoming Queen (and valedictorian). But that was in Buffalo. In NYC I am just another girl. No one would ever describe me as sleek or exotic. I'm more like the "girl next door" and Claire is straight up a "supermodel" - even in New York or Paris or London.

I don't mean to run myself down. I've definitely struggled with my self image in the past. My mother says I'm "womanly." I'm skinny-fat and try to dress cool, or cool enough. My frame is petite and thin. And I'm not short, only an inch or two shorter than Claire, but my boobs and ass are big and don't lend themselves to haute couture. Danny used to say I could have been a stripper.

Claire's figure is the figure I always wished I had, and her clothes and the way she carries herself are next level. I tried not to think about any of this too much as I sat on the cold toilet seat and forced myself to relax enough to pee.

"Do you like tapas?" Claire asks, applying her lipstick. She looks like a picture from the cover of a magazine. Like a photo of a beautiful woman putting on lipstick.

I tell her I do.

"Have you been to Puerta Roja?" she asks, "it's not far from here, and I've been meaning to try it."

"No, but I've heard it's amazing."

"Perfect, it's right around the corner from my place, and I've never been!" Claire's enthusiasm is plain, she's looking at me as I finally let go and pee. I can see the surprise in her eyes and feel myself once again blush furiously. It's a Niagara.

But she seems unfazed. Looking away as if nothing is happening, she says, "your work is really lovely. I expected something dry..." she glances at me and pulls a comic face, "Clinical? But it's much more abstract and fantastical than I ever imagined charting data could be. To tell the truth, I didn't really know what I was looking at most of the time, just that it was exciting and beautiful."

She is doing her eyes now, politely speaking over the thunder of my pee. Again I want to hide my face, but instead, I think I do a pretty good job of seeming nonchalant.

"The big interactive election map the Times did last month," she asks after I finally stop peeing, "was that you?"

"Yes!" I chirp. Trying to clean myself without looking like I am, but Claire is so absolutely unfazed. I don't get any sense that she cares at all - so I do my best to follow her lead. "...or at least, it was my team. It was my boss Keith's brain child. But yeah, I worked on it."

"It was really amazing," Claire tells me. "No, really! That was great journalism. I was very impressed. I felt like I really got what happened in a way that no article had made clear."

"Thanks!" I am pulling up my panties, this is all so strange and funny, but also so fun. I'm so excited that Claire gets it - that she gets me - I feel almost giddy.

"Do you write code?" she asks.

"Some, but I really should learn more. We have a full time coder named Ben," I say, gesturing vaguely to the outside world. The world of Keith and Ben and Kathy and the rest, all of whom seem infinitely distant from our little bathroom stronghold. "I studied design, but I used to do all my own code, so I'm good in a pinch."

Claire gives me an appreciative look and makes room for me at the sink so I can wash my hands, but before I can freshen my makeup she stops me.

"Nope, no makeup, drunks don't do makeup, time to be my drunk!"

She brushes her fingers across my lips giving my lipstick a little smear. I feel a jolt of excitement and fear as she does.

I hadn't really pictured making a drunken exit... the bar is crowded - what if Keith or Kip or someone else from the paper sees me? But then I think of Claire calling me a gem after I'd spilled wine over her, and I smile.

"What do I do?"

Claire puts an arm under mine and around my waist, supporting my weight and I slump into her.

"This isn't the first time you've done this,'' she accuses. I smile and do my best drunken giggle.

"You'rrrre shooo nishhe," I slur. "How's that?"

"Holy shit, you're much better at this than I expected... Here we go!" she tells me as she opens the door and guides me through the crowd. With comic timing we almost bump right into the bachelorette, so I let my momentum carry us, making sure we do.

"Claire!" she says in surprise, a pink penis-shaped drinking straw dropping to the floor from her mouth and spilling her watermelon daiquiri down my bare leg.

"Jessica! Oh my gosh, Jessica! Jessica, this is my friend Sarah!"

"Whatsh her name?" I ask Claire, who fights not to laugh.

"Jessica, I ran into Sarah in the ladies room," Claire explains, her voice dropping and slowing to articulate "ladies room" - already expressing her tragic regret. And then in a stage whisper, she says, "I think she's had a little too much to drink."

"TooMUSH?!? I'm fine..." I declare, but let the daiquiried leg slowly slip out from under me, dragging Claire down, who has to struggle to right and support us both.

"Oh, Sarah, it's so nice to meet you!" The fear in Jessica's eyes is palpable. She does not want her party saddled with some random drunk bitch.

"I'm so sorry Jessica, but I think I should probably take Sarah home, you know, before..."

"Are you a queen?" I ask, narrowing my eyes at Jessica suspiciously and making Claire stutter with laughter for a moment.

"Oh I totally understand..." Again, if Jessica is making any attempt to hide the relief in her eyes, she's failing spectacularly.

"Why does your crown have dicks on it, your highnessh?" I ask, as Claire's hold on me slips. "Are you shome short of cock Queen?"

Claire is grabbing me, trying to regain her hold. Her hand squeezes my boob as she pushes me past Jessica and towards the door. "Sarah! it's Jessica's bache..."

"Do you live in a beautiful phallush in an enshhhanted CONDOM?" I interrupt, my voice getting louder the closer we get to the door. Claire all but shoves me out the door.

"Oh my GOD," Claire is hissing in my ear, choking back hysterics as we tumbled out onto the street, "SARAH, where did that come from?!"

"Too much? " I ask crisply, straightening up and instantly shrugging off my drunken routine for comic effect. "You are a surprisingly terrible liar, Claire! I thought you were in sales?"

"I know," she laughs. "I'm a terrible saleswoman as well, but you... you are an actrice!"

"Well I may have done some theater in college," I tell her modestly. "And you did say you wanted take-home drunk?"

"Fuck, you are full of surprises! You really put on a fucking show. I think I'm going to keep you!" she says through her laughter.

We are still holding onto each other, both of us laughing uncontrollably. My sides ache. Claire sees a cab and leaps into action, dragging me to the curb with her, she puts one finger in her mouth and whistles like a Goddamn steamship.

"Jesus!!" I exclaim in surprise, holding my ear. But Claire pays me no mind, focused only on the cab sliding to a stop in front of us. And seconds later we are racing crosstown for tapas.

"You are a very good lady to have around in a jam," she tells me. "I owe you a glass of wine."

"Just one?" I ask, still soothing my ear with my finger.

"A bottle it is!" she laughs.

Claire buys way more than one bottle of wine. There's also dancing, and cocktails on the house, and possibly dancing on the tables... things are getting a little blurry. At some point, long after closing time, Claire decides it is time to go home.

"I am take-home drunk!" she tells all our new found friends as we stumble out onto the street; this time in earnest.

It is a short walk, or maybe a stumble, to Claire's place. She is serenading the neighborhood on our way home. "Je suis ton pile, tu es mon face," she vamps in a smokey voice. "Toi mon nombril... et moi ta glace!"

It is so beautiful and sexy. I can't understand what she is singing, but she sings beautifully, swinging her hips and smiling at me as she dances backwards down the block, pulling me along by the fingers. "Tu es l'envie et moi le geste, toi le citron et moi le zeste! Je suis le thé, tu es la tasse, toi la guitare et moi la basse!"

"That'sh sush a beauuuutiful shong," I gush, this time my slur is authentic and hard won.

"Oui, c'est une chanson française des amoureux."

"My Frencshh is merrrrde, whash it mean?" But she won't tell me, and then I wipe out, sprawling across the pavement.