Peter, Prue Ch. 04

When Monday came, Prue went back to work.

Back when it all started going to pieces, she'd called in sick. First she'd tried to drown herself in work for a few days. Work would distract her, she'd hoped, and she needed distraction.

But it hadn't.

That first Monday her boss Victor Kuric, Vic, had indeed talked to her and it had been about her coordinating the next project.

It was a promotion and a huge compliment. But somehow all the glamour had left the prospect, and he'd noticed. Grinning in his sweet Clooney-type way he'd asked if something was wrong. She'd denied, of course, but after the third day of dragging herself through the motions, they'd talked again, and she'd shared her doubts about their marriage - telling him Peter left her.

He'd taken her out to lunch - just a sandwich - and advised her to call in sick until she was up to work again. Now, almost two weeks later, she remembered how his warm hand on her shoulder had sent little thrills down her back.

He'd been so very understanding.

Now she parked her car and walked to the elevators, heels clicking on the concrete floor. They were simple things she'd done hundreds of times before, but today they felt new and they thrilled her. She met colleagues in the elevator, and they were all very sweet to her, asking her how she was, complimenting her on how she looked, and telling her they were glad she was back on board.

Walking across the office floor felt like immersing in a warm bath.

Prue found that people liked her, and had genuinely missed her. Getting a cup of coffee was a quiet act of triumph; sharing gossip a rare bit of common-day bliss.

Prue was back.

She greedily drank in every greeting, every compliment. And she needed it. Seeing Peter jerk off hit her hard - hurting her ego and shaking her confidence. His lame excuses never really convinced her. She obviously wasn't enough for him anymore.

Look what happened: they'd just made love again after weeks - twice even. She was there, naked in bed with him, and he had to sneak away to masturbate in the bathroom?

Images of Peter and Julia kept popping up as she lie in bed with him later, desperately cuddling into him, holding on to his body; the damn pictures of him and her wouldn't go away - the riot of blond hair, the big tits and the endless legs. And of course the sight of Peter crouching over the toilet, jerking his penis.

Did he think of her as he came, reliving their fuckfest? Had he seen Julia as they made love?

The ghostlike images never left her that night. But she decided to swallow her pride. Give him time, she told herself, maybe it is all a matter of healing.

They'd made love again twice that weekend, sweet and slow. And they'd gone out to eat and dance. She'd only danced with him and turned down advances and drinks. Back home they'd kissed and cuddled, drifting off to sleep.

Give him time.

And now she was back at work, putting away her jacket and placing her leather briefcase on her empty, shining desk when Bridget, her shared secretary, told her she was expected to see Kuric.

A thrill touched her.

He walked around his desk when she entered - tall, wearing an impeccable suit and his boyish grin. Ignoring her hand, he hugged her, telling her how welcome she was, and how sorely she'd been missed. His aftershave filled her head; her body felt his muscles through the suit.

She blushed when they parted.

Sitting in one of his overstuffed chairs she listened to him informing her about the progress of the project that had - 'regrettably' - started without her. He explained how she could still contribute until the next project would present itself.

Prue just watched his mouth move.

She should feel regret about missing the promotion, but she didn't. So many other things had happened since the shake up of her life: the betrayal by her best friend, the doubts about her once unconditional love.

She tried to focus on what Kuric said, but the emotions of the weekend returned - the relief and the disappointment, the hope and the bitter taste of reality.

If Pete wasn't totally hers, what was the use of being true to him?

The thought invaded her mind bluntly - it didn't knock or announce itself. It just entered, startling her with its matter-of-factness. Prue knew she'd always liked watching other men, weighing their attractiveness and enjoying their attention - basking in it, even. But it had always been a superficial thing, a massage of her ego and an affirmation of her own attractiveness.

Funny enough it had been more about ensuring her place amongst women than a sexual thing. She loved to compete by dressing well and looking good - not so much to send sexy signals to men, just to be noticed by women.

When men really took her up on it, she'd panicked and rushed to get back into the save arms of Peter. To be true, she wasn't a very sexual creature at all, was she? It took a lot of cuddling and attention to arouse her. And the only man she'd wanted to do that with had been Peter Hawkins.

Maybe having that certainty was the only reason she dared to do it.

Up until now.

Watching Victor Kuric talk and smile and grin caused a warmth to spread inside her. Not the cozy, secure feelings she had with Peter, or the exciting superficiality of flirting, not at all. There was a thrill in it she'd never felt with Kuric before - or with any man. It felt as if a door had opened inside her; as if a barrier had been pushed aside, allowing the warm feelings to spread, not as something sweet and sympathetic, but as a real, earthy, physical thing.

It made her wet.

It also made her feel embarrassed.

"Are you all right, Prue?"

She shook her head to lose the sticky, spidery web her thoughts had woven around her. Smiling wide she said she was fine, thanking him for his kind words and assuring him she was prepared to get back to work full force.

He grinned his infuriating lopsided grin again and rose. Following his example, she felt moisture stick to her crotch. There was a slightly awkward quality to the next moments. Then he hugged her again, wishing her success.

Prue rushed down the corridor to find the nearest toilet.

***

For Julia Monday was a blur.

She stared at the empty bottles. They seemed to be everywhere; crowding the table, lying around her bed, and even scattered throughout the bathroom. Stiff-limbed and groaning she went picking them up and dumping them in the large trash bag she dragged behind her. The clanging of the glass hurt her head and made her wince.

It was afternoon; she'd lost an entire weekend.

After working through her impressive wine collection, she'd attacked whatever liquor she had, ending with beer. She'd made sure to not have one clear moment all day or night; it would have too painfully reminded her of how stupid she'd been.

There were huge gaps in her memory, where she must have blissfully zonked out.

Collecting the empties, she found half-dried vomit and dark stains that reeked of urine.

She'd been on drinking binges before, but never like this. Slowly returning to sobriety she thanked God there hadn't been drugs or pills in the house. After cleaning away the bottles and the filth, she responded to the three voice mail messages from work. She apologized, claiming illness, and took a shower.

The water felt great.

It cleaned her body and her mind, flushing ghosts and demons down the drain together with the dirt and the embarrassment. My God, she should be ashamed. The proud and independent Julia crawling through the house, boozing and vomiting, and most of all: wallowing in self-pity. And why?

She'd gambled and lost; she'd been stupidly arrogant, thinking she was invulnerable - what else was new?

Sitting down in her fluffy bathrobe she meticulously made up her face, covering the rings under her eyes and the paleness of her skin. Then she blow-dried her hair, making it grow into a halo of golden curls. She packed her tits into a push up bra, her freshly shaved pussy in a thong. Then she covered it all with a tight jersey sweater and a black, ass-hugging skirt. Adding dashes of perfume to the fragrances of shampoo and body lotion, she went looking for her tallest heels.

Nothing like a pampered body to shore up the mind.

One last check in the mirror, and Julia Connors crossed her front door sill to meet the world.

A lioness roared in the jungle.

***

For Peter Monday morning was a relief.

Before going into work, he went by his apartment to get fresh clothes. He supposed Prue expected him to give up the dumpy place and return to their old home. He guessed it was the natural thing to do, but he had to force himself into thinking that. Being around Prue wasn't as easy as it had seemed at first.

Something changed.

Was it all the damn things they went through that kept sticking to them? Was it their time apart? Or the cheating they'd both done? You might think making love again would have erased the awkwardness, but it hadn't. At first there'd been the rush of relief that they'd been able to overcome the past and be together again. But Prue had just been... Prue. And the orgasms had been... tame.

He also knew he'd lied.

He'd masturbated to his lively memories of fucking Julia - her mouth, her tight cunt, her ass. And his orgasm, although his third in only hours, had been more intense than the ones he had with Prue.

Maybe they needed time.

But deep down Peter knew this wasn't true. Something'd changed between them. Maybe the change was only with him? Prue was her sweet cuddly, kissing and spooning self, wasn't she? Like a cute, purring animal in his embrace. Her orgasms had been as always - slow in the coming and discreet, with meowing little moans. No shaking, no screaming, no clawing with her toes.

Not at all like she had been in the pictures, devouring three men. And not at all like Julia, he thought.

Why did he think that? He'd felt disgusted after what Julia did to him - boozing him up and using him - raping? But there had been this second time when he'd looked Julia up, gone to her apartment. She'd seduced him then, hadn't she, taking advantage of his depression? Yes, he liked to think that.

And thinking it, made his penis hard.

Work was gloriously normal, and thank God totally absorbing.

No one asked anything, it was all just about the things at hand - and about sports of course. Ever since his active days, Peter had developed a lack of interest in football and baseball. Basketball had never been his thing. He played some tennis, but hardly ever watched it on TV. So the never-ending comments during coffee breaks didn't attract him.

Today they did, however; he just loved to listen and float on the utter shallowness of it.

Then five o'clock came and he realized he didn't want to go home. He couldn't stay at the offices, though - they closed for security reasons. So at five fifteen he sat in the Bell and Clapper, drinking ale and shooting the breeze.

Around six thirty his phone rang.

"Pete? Where are you?"

It was Prue. She worried, she said. Why didn't he call? She was making dinner, and she supposed... That was where she fell silent.

"Ehm...," she then said. "If you don't want to come home yet, that ehm... is all right. I don't want to..."

And she became silent again.

Peter felt awful. He knew he was a coward to stay away without calling her. The buzz of the bar closed in on him. One of his colleagues called his name. He waved him away. Then he rose and walked out of the bar, into the street.

"Prue," he said, not knowing how to go on - just filling the gap.

"Peter," she said. "If you're not ready, I understand."

No, dammit, he screamed inside. She shouldn't understand him. She should scream and cry. She should accuse him, make him feel what a bastard he was.

But she didn't.

She told him she understood, but if he please would let her in on his plans so she knew what to expect. Please, she said, for God's sake.

Then she disconnected.

***

Prue hung her jacket in the small closet at her office.

She straightened a wrinkle, admiring the deep red of her fingernails. She was back on track, wasn't she? Three days since she'd started again, and everything was under control. Yesterday a colleague said he was glad to see she was the old Prue again.

She took it as a compliment, smiling at the sweet old man.

Ah, she could use compliments. For a moment she'd thought things were back to being all right with Pete and their marriage - until she saw him masturbating. She'd been sure it had been Julia's name he was muttering while pulling on his hard cock.

My God, yes, she could use compliments.

Looking into the body-length mirror she critically checked her outfit. Silk white blouse on a charcoal, knee-length pencil skirt; black sheer stockings, shining patent leather pumps; higher heels than usual. Her dark hair shone, framing a pale face. She blinked her huge, smoky eyes and stretched her signal red lips into a smile.

Was it too much?

Prue shook her head, making her hair sway. No. Her modest days were over. Opening another button, she watched her cleavage appear. She noticed what her first time ever Wonderbra did to her chest. It gave her a little thrill.

She touched an invisible speck at the corner of her mouth, and turned to start her day.

"Bravo."

She'd left her door open. In its frame stood Vic Kuric, smiling. A sudden blush washed over her face and throat. Yes, he was tall; he filled the entire opening.

"I thought I'd pick you up for the meeting," he said. "If you don't mind."

The shock abated, and she found a trembling smile.

"Of course not!" she exclaimed louder than she'd wanted to. "Let me get my jacket."

Walking down the hallway next to him felt giddy but good.

Her new heels made her ass sway a bit more in the tight skirt. They also gave her a new height and a wonderfully risky wobble to her ankles. Once she slipped and he grabbed her wrist. They had a good laugh, but she felt the warmth of his squeeze for minutes.

Standing in the elevator, alone with him, seemed to last forever.

She stole a glance past him into the mirrored wall. God, they made a lovely pair, she thought, feeling another blush come up. He had the perfect body for the light wool suit he wore: straight and slim, muscled, no fat.

She guessed anything would look good on him.

The meeting was nothing special, except for Vic's compliment on the work she'd done. It gave her the third blush of the morning.

On their way down again he asked her if she had plans for lunch.

It took her by surprise; she stuttered a bit as her brain raced. They'd lunched before and it had always been simple and rather functional - just two colleagues grabbing a bite and a coffee.

So why did this feel different?

They were in the elevator again. He grinned at her predicament, his gray eyes twinkling in full George Clooney mode.

"Just a bite," he said. "Nothing special."

"Ehm..., well, of course," she muttered. Then she found her smile.

He nodded.

"Or should we hit the Carlton?" he asked. "The Orangerie?"

The Carlton was the posh place Julia had disastrously taken her to. It had a sumptuous dining room, but next to that was a rather cute lunch place, situated in a glass greenhouse-like restaurant called l'Orangerie. There were palms and orange trees, rare birds in cages, and shielded niches with rattan furniture.

It was a place famous for romance of the naughtier kind.

Before she could say anything he apologized.

"Sorry, I guess I was a trifle too enthusiastic," he said, nullifying his apologetic words with a grin.

"No, no!" Prue said. "Not at all! I was just, ehm... surprised."

He chuckled.

"Surprised," he repeated.

Just then the elevator doors opened and they stepped out into the hallway. Prue felt stupid. Why did she have to be so damn uncouth, and blush all the time?

He stopped in the middle of the corridor, turning towards her.

"Why would that surprise you, Prue?" he asked. "I've been wanting to ask you that for ages, don't you know? I just never dared."

It was all Prue needed to feel her old flirting self return.

Now it was she who chuckled, turning her face down to look from under her eyebrows. She called it her Diana-gaze, from the late British princess. It always worked.

"Now I'm truly surprised, Vic," she said. "I wonder why you didn't dare. What could be so dangerous about an innocent little lunch?"

He laughed. It wasn't a chuckle or a grin, but a true belly laugh.

"Twelve-thirty," he said. "I'll pick you up."

He turned and walked to his office.

Prue still stood staring after he'd long gone.

•••

Julia Connors sat back in her rattan chair and waited.

She realized she'd blown it with old Gascoyne, throwing away all she'd worked on so hard. She agreed that she had been monumentally stupid and arrogant not to realize the little bitch would show daddy the pictures, after their clash at the Carlton.

Still Gascoyne's reaction had surprised her - where would the old geezer ever again get his limp old weenie sucked as patiently as she'd done, over and over? But she knew the answer, of course: by another whore.

Julia had blown it, and she knew someone would pay for it.

So the fool thought he had a perfect daughter? He'd pooh-poohed her cheating, calling it drugs-induced rape. He'd even tried to find out who did it.

Of course he would find nothing.

He'd also applauded Prue's leaving Peter as it brought her back into the fold. His daughter was his Princess - sweet and flawless, and innocent.

We'll see to that, Julia thought.

She picked up her tiny cup of espresso, sipping and leaving a semi-circle of lipstick on the rim. Sitting behind a trellis overgrown with tropical plants, wearing her tightest dress and her most aggressive war paint, she watched the entrance of the Orangerie.

'Don't let me down, Vic,' she thought, frowning a dark vertical in her immaculate brow.

She'd met Victor Kuric shortly after she went to college, even before meeting Prue.

She'd just left her mother's house in the trailer park and a childhood marked by insecurity, abuse and abandon. She'd always been well aware how the woman paid the rent. All through her youth there had been these shady men visiting, giving her coins to stay away and have an ice cream. She remembered the many sleepovers with her aunt or friends, the quarrels at night when she was supposed to sleep.

It should have made her a very cynical girl. And of course she was. It helped her step out of herself when she sucked dirty cocks in cheap motels to pay her rent and add to her meager allowance.

It also prepared her for Victor Kuric.

Maybe it takes one wolf to sniff out another, even when both wear sheep clothes?

She remembered the first time they met, in the Zoozoom, where she sometimes picked up guys. He was older, already working. He also was very handsome, and aware of that.

She observed him from behind the invisible battlements of her cynicism - watching his ice cold, deadly charming techniques at seducing girls. He was good, she admitted - an accomplished asshole.

When he spotted her, she almost melted under the sudden impact of his attention. He smiled, joked cleverly, bought her drinks and exhausted her on the dance floor. She knew he aimed at making her drunk, but she knew how to hold her liquor. There had been too much secretly snatched booze in her past.

But they had fun, my God, did they have fun.

She teased him mercilessly and he was a great sport, even satisfied with a simple kiss when they parted. But she was back at the Zoozoom the next night, and so was he.