Mute

I sat in a white-backed lounge chair, staring at the glowing square of my laptop screen. A bit of glare from the uncovered glass doors behind me, the ones that led out to a small furniture-covered balcony, made me squint as I stared at the computer. My fingers clicked against the keys, moving rapid-fire as I typed up my second Agreement of Purchase and Sale for the day.

This particular deal was for a $2,300,000 cottage property on the northern shore of Lake Michigan. I'd been working as a junior associate for Birch & Mickellin for coming-up on two years now. I'd been particularly lucky. One of the name partners, Jonathan Birch, had been a friend of my father's. After four years of undergrad at the University of Chicago, two years of law school at Queens University, and a final finishing semester at UoC Berkley, I'd gotten a paralegal internship at Milwaukee Area Associates where I'd struggled through my first two years. As soon as they were over, Jonathan Birch had swept me into Birch & Mickellin, where I'd very quickly become one of the key figures in the office.

The job was actually pretty simple. Deal with the real estate deals, and the myriad of issues that appeared in them, after one of his secretaries handed me a file. Leave Jonathan with nothing to do but sign the bottom of wills and do afternoon consulting with clients; which sometimes happened in his office, but more often happened in the tap-room of the Red Star Bar or Portillo & Barnelli's, the mid-class Italian eatery just down the street from our building.

It was a simple deal; I stayed busy, Jonathan stayed rich for years after he otherwise might have retired--the return was that I learned from one of the most experience real estate lawyers in Illinois, and that I basically had a free hand to deal with work how I would. Unless I really made a mistake on a file, which had only happened once or twice, Jonathan pretty much let me run the office.

Which is why, while he met with clients--Mr. and Mrs. Delinois--in his office this Friday morning, I was seated in the open space of my two-bedroom flat. Willie Nelson buzzed out of the small, corded white headphones that ran from the side of my laptop up into my ears as I worked. The voice helped me concentrate; the slightly shaky oldness of it, the electric strings of the guitar, the swinging country tune. A grey-lined white blouse hung open down my chest, low enough to reveal the top of my small, braless breasts. The sleeves were rolled up, just beneath my elbows. My legs, in a black pencil skirt, were tucked under the flat face of the glass-topped desk I'd set up in our shared living-room. Rolling my fingers around the sharpened end of a pencil, I twisted it slightly between two teeth as I studied the Agreement of Purchase and Sale I'd been sent.

I didn't actually use pencil. A red felt-tipped marker sat on the desk for correction markings. I just needed something to fiddle with to help myself think. Turning in my chair, I glanced out the paneled windows behind me. The metal-banded frames swept out on either side of a sliding glass door. I could make out the branches of a sparse forest behind the stretch of the balcony. As I stared out into the trees, my vision drew back slightly. To where my reflection was staring back at me, faintly, from the sun-brightened glass.

I'd turned thirty-two a couple of weeks before. It still surprised me, sometimes, when I caught my reflection and realize that I wasn't sixteen any longer. That my face had, was, slowly and surely becoming a woman's face. That the long lines of my cheeks and jaw resembled my mother; the small lines at the corners of my eyes, the sharpness of my eyebrows, the slightly lifted curves that made up each side of my nose. The dusty brown hair that had been gathered in a clip behind my head, and the two waves which had been intentionally left free to hang down just beside the corner of either eye. Those were all my mother's features.

The small ears, the dark brown and slightly almond-shaped eyes, the mouth which I'd heard described as stern-looking but which I thought was actually quite soft. How my neck dipped inward ever so slightly to meet the deep hollows of my collarbones, beneath the open collar of my blouse. Those were all my father.

The mind, though--that was all mine. It wasn't that my parents were stupid. Far from it. My father had been a steel puddler in downtown Chicago from the time he was a teenager. My mother had been a waitress, before changing careers shortly before I was born and becoming a manager for George Clayton House Museum. They weren't stupid, but neither of them had... whatever it was that I had. The ability to disengage and go entirely analytical; the instant mathematical recall, the ability to consume facts and put them together like someone speed-running one of those thousand-piece jigsaw puzzles.

I'd always thought it was just because I'd gone to University, and they hadn't. But most of the people I'd actually gone to University with couldn't do it either. My mother said it came from her father, who'd been a Professor of Mathematical Engineering at Bellevue University. I wouldn't know whether that was true or not. He'd died shortly after I was born, too early for me to have even the faintest memory of him. But each time my mother said it, I caught my father's smile--he'd never contradict her, not about that or really anything, but his smile spoke volumes.

You're smarter, it said quite clearly. Only once, when we'd been drinking in the living-room after my mother had gone to bed, had he put actual words to the smile. Her father was intelligent, and educated... one of the brightest men I've had the pleasure of meeting. But he was strange-smart. You, Lanie, are some kind of prodigy.

I should probably mention, my name is Elaine Legrayes. Nobody in my life, except my mother when she's particularly unimpressed by one of my decisions, has called me Elaine. I've been Lanie ever since I was old enough to understand my own name.

The truth is, I'd never thought of myself as a genius. I also didn't think of anybody else as stupid. Sometimes, more often than not, I could just do things more easily than they could. It didn't feel right to think of myself as smart, because it wasn't something that I worked at. I read things, I understood them, and once I understood them--I never forgot them.

It was why I could stare out the glass door into the forested outskirts of Chicago where the city met the small countryside before Burlington, seeing each page of the Agreement of Purchase and Sale running through the glass above my reflection. It was why I could concentrate on it even through the twangy reverberation of Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die that played through my headphones.

What I couldn't concentrate through, which I could hear under the buzzing of my music, were the sounds that came from behind Charlie's bedroom door. Charlie was a great housemate, in all the ways that mattered. She was clean, always game for a night of drinking white wine after a long day at the office, and most of all she let me set up my work station in our living-room without a word of complaint.

If she had one flaw, it was the sex. Not the sex itself. That was perfectly fine by me; I knew even before we moved in together that Charlie went through men the same way that most men went through women. She treated them the same way, too--which I thought was excellent. A night of fun, and then when the sun rose it was a quick kick through the front door. Often while they were still trying to pull on their pants.

Sex didn't bother me. Charlie's voice didn't bother me. The two in combination, though? When Charlie fucked, I thought the sounds that came out of her should have brought every police officer in a five-mile radius bursting through our front door. A series of Oh, yes! and Oh, fuck! and high-pitched screams that had actually startled me awake and brought me to her door, the first time I'd heard it.

Today's man--or rather, last nights man--must be particularly good. It happened, sometimes. One of the lucky ones, or unlucky ones, got a couple of extra hours in the morning. It was nearing noon, and I could hear them going again. Even through my headphones, I could hear Charlie's staccato voice rising in a sequence of squeals and exclamations.

Closing my eyes, I tried to concentrate on the picture of the Agreement of Purchase and Sale that came to my mind. Normally, this was enough to help me ignore the sounds that came from behind Charlie's bedroom door. Today, for whatever reason, it just wasn't. Not even close. The sound, I thought, should have been enough to make the windows reverberate in their metal frames. As I sat, staring out of those windows and listening to Charlie's high-pitched whines, I realized that my heartbeat had quickened.

I thought it was annoyance. There was a quick, discomfiting second, when I realized that it wasn't. Not even close. In fact, that more that I sat and listened, the more I realized I could feel a slight echo, far fainter, echo of my heartbeat between my legs.

Oh, for fuck sake.

For a moment I considered packing up my things and taking them to the office. It was only a twelve minute drive away. Unfortunately, that presented its own collection of challenges; namely, one challenge--Benjamin. He was a second-year paralegal who worked in the small office adjacent to mine. I could almost see him now. The head of dark curls, the kind of smile that normally only appeared at award-acceptance ceremonies, the hint of youth around his eyes and the shadow of hair around the smooth curve of his jaw that belied it. He was a couple of years younger than me. He'd also made his interest quite clear, letting me know he was always free for a drink.

The truth is--he was handsome, smart, and attractively confident without the usual male machismo that I found so completely ridiculous. Even the fact that he was four years younger than me didn't bother me. At least, not all that much. I'd been planning to give him a chance for the last six months. Why I hadn't was... well, it was mostly a matter of timing. He was busy, and I was extremely busy, and no matter how much I pictured him walking into my office and bending me over the desk while we were working together, at the end of the day I was too busy running around to glance at the back of his bum through his dress pants and really consider anything.

And you wonder why you haven't gotten laid in six months? Horrifyingly, though the voice in my head was my own, I very clearly heard my mother's tsk, tsk at the end of it. The sound made when her tongue whisked against her two front teeth, a sound I knew to mean: silly girl.

If I went into the office right now, I knew Benjamin would be working in his office. And I was horny. I knew I'd spend the next six hours staring at my computer screen, trying not to think about what could happen if I walked into that office and locked the door behind me. While a junior partner sleeping with a paralegal wasn't technically not allowed, it was definitely frowned upon by company policy. Sex in the office was definitely frowned upon, even though I knew for a fact that at least two of the senior partners had done it. One because I'd been working late and heard it, the other because I'd heard about it over a round of after-work drinks during my first year.

All of which was to say, at least for today the office was an attractive option, but not a wise option.

Easy solution. The voice in my head sounded like it was chuckling. Simple problems have simple solutions.

Shut up. I actually went so far as to roll my eyes at the little voice. Shut up, please. Go away. You've had your fun. Think about the Delinois files now.

The voice chuckled almost chidingly as it retreated. Unfortunately, that left me with only the music and Charlie's fast-paced, half-swallowed shrieking. As the sound came back, I could feel a slight dampness gathering behind the front of my vagina.

How's that IQ, smart girl? The voice in my head laughed. This time, though it was my own voice, it definitely held a slight edge that remined me of Benjamin's. Trying to remember how to spell 'forfeiture'? How about you play some fucking Scrabble instead? Tax percentage paid on a second-mortgage property lease? It's fifty-two pick-up, baby.

You're a bastard. I thought internally, knowing that I was directing the voice at myself.

Though by this point I was irritated, that irritation was mostly focused at my own lack of concentration. The sounds that came under Charlie's doorway--and through the walls, and the floor--were still making me feel slightly heady. Without really thinking about it, my hand which wasn't busy twirling the pencil reached down and touched against my thigh. About an inch under where the end of my skirt reached toward my knees.

Here? Even the voice seemed slightly surprised.

"Oh, get fucked." I barely registered that I'd spoken the words out loud, whispering them softly toward my own reflection in the glass of the window.

Turning, I pulled the pencil out from between my teeth and tossed it onto the desk. Then, using my free hand, I reached up and pinched the small plastic rectangle on the right-most cord of my headphones. The music clicked quietly, and then went silent.

Mute.

Tucking my legs under the desk, I spread them until they reached the support struts. I could feel the thin metal bars against the sides of my knees. By the sound of Charlie's voice, even with my eyes open, I could almost picture what was happening on the other side of the doorway. I saw her legs spread, in a position almost similar to mine. I saw the mystery man thrusting between them, moving her with each motion. Each steady thrust punctuated by another one of Charlie's open-mouthed whines. Resting one hand between my chin and my cheek, elbow on the desk, I reach the other one down between my legs.

As soon as my fingers reach beneath my skirt, coming to rest on the front of my underwear, I know I've underestimated just how turned on I am. The slightest touch is enough to make me breathe out, quite hard, through my nose and against my curled fingers. The front of my underwear isn't just damp. Some time during my argument--discussion--with myself, it had gone from lightly damp to sodden. I can feel the wetness of the fabric against my skin as my fingers come into contact with it, pushing it sideways against one thigh.

Now that I've muted my headphones, I can hear the sound of my own breathing. I didn't even realize I'd begun breathing hard until I hear the slight echo of it in the empty space that the music had once filled; the slight rise of my breasts against my blouse as I breathe, the touch of the fabric against my nipples. I fight the urge to bring my hand down from my cheek and over my breast.

Instead, I slowly sink the tips of two fingers into myself. Instantly I can feel the warm wetness running down between them. I'm definitely more aroused than I thought. In the back, some tiny part of me that always manages to be analytical--even during sex, which is annoying--tells me I should have known that. Not because of anything I'm feeling, but because I'm about to masturbate in the living-room listening to my housemate being fucked; which is not unaroused behaviour.

As my fingers sink about half an inch further inside of myself, my thumb pushes aside the top of my underwear to find my clit. I can feel the slight throbbing of it. That sensation makes me brush the flat of my thumb over the slightly raised skin, drawing another deep exhale from my nose. I fight the urge not to gasp. Not that Charlie and her partner have any chance of hearing it, over the distance and the volume of their own love-making, but I've decided to be careful. That, at least, I can commit to.

'Love-making'. The voice in my head grins at that, causing me a slightly stab of annoyance. That's fucking, baby. Hard, mindless, animal fucking. Hey, what do you think Benjamin's up to today?

"Shut up," I whisper--a sound which ends in a slight whimper as I push my fingers inside of myself and then draw them back, "Shut up, shut up, shut--" I match the rhythm of my fingers to the repetition of my voice.

Alright, alright. I was just asking. No reason in particular.

Stop asking.

Fine. No harm in it, though. Just saying. Instead of shutting the voice down immediately, I consider the words. Not seriously, but just letting them run through my head--which I suppose is what they were doing in the first place. I turn the idea over. I can almost hear the voice laughing in victory. You don't have to call him or anything. We could just picture it, right? That curly black hair in your hands, his hands on your thighs, his mouth against your pussy--

This time, I let the voice continue; let the images that it brings to mind stay there while my fingers continue to work between my legs. The brushing of my thumb against my clit becomes just slightly more insistent; a bit faster, using the ball of my thumb rather than the flat. Sliding down an inch further in my chair, I scoot back slightly to give me hand easier access.

By this time, my fingers are really going. They thrust in and out of myself in time with Charlie's cries. I almost forget whether the sound is coming from her or from me. The throbbing sensation has spread out from my clit; into my thighs, my throat, the bottom of my butt cheeks where they sit against the padded lounge chair.

Anyways, time to take off. Have fun!

Don't you fucking dare, my response comes almost as a snarl inside of my own head. You started this, mister. Finish what you started, you bastard.

Mister?

You're my libido. I get to choose your pronouns. You're a mister. Stop asking questions and bring Benjamin back.

Alright. I can almost hear the cocky grin in the sound of the voice. It's his voice, now. I can almost see him speaking, leaning around the door of my office. You asked for it, though. Just remember that.

The images hit me so hard that I actually do gasp. My back is pressed against the flat wood of my office desk, my stocking-covered feet up around Benjamin's broad shoulders. His cock plunges into me, following the exact path of my fingers. Matching the slight stretch of their width, their slickness, the slightly electric buzz that travels through my body as they hit the particularly sensitive spot just behind my opening.

I know I'm close to cumming, because the living-room has almost disappeared completely. My legs are wrapped around Benjamin's waist while he thrusts into me from below, my arms tangled around his neck, my hands grabbing at the thick curls of his dark hair.

It suddenly occurs to me that I'm not just moaning in my thoughts--through my headphones, I can hear the sound in the living-room around me. With each breath, there's a high-pitched moaning sound. Not something I've ever heard come from my own mouth. I try to hold back the sound, but it's pointless. Partially because it's covered by the sound of Charlie's shrieking, and partially because I find that I can't even if I try.

There's a slight fogginess to the images in my head, now. The scenes are coming slightly stuttered--like a video that can't quite load properly. I'm on my knees, sucking Benjamin's cock with my own hand between my legs. This time, it's his hand in my hair. The scene breaks. We're on a couch and he's between my legs once more. One leg is hooked over the back of the sofa--not one that I own--and the other is wrapped around the back of his knee. The sensation is incredible. The softness of his skin, the slight rise of the muscles beneath it, the rigidness of the cock that drives between my legs.