Chapter 29 More Like Bored-Room, Am I Right, Ladies? #2
We both joined our colleagues for pizza, where I made a point of talking non-business with some folks I never bothered getting to know before.
Every step, though, I felt Hudson’s attention on me.
The only reprieve I got was when I finally fled to the bathroom, trying to tamp down the lust gripping me.
That was where Leelah found me, interrupting my peace.
“Girl. How do you expect to keep you and Hudson dating a secret when you’re constantly looking at each other with fuck me eyes?”
“First, hi. Second, no we don’t. And third, we’re not dating.”
“I bet that would be news to him.” Off my flat look, she continued. “What? You guys are going on dates. He met your parents.”
“We’ve been on dates. We’re not dating. We’re just kind of seeing each other. No labels. There’s a difference.”
“Sure, sure.” She rolled her eyes. “I forgot—everything you two do together is just foreplay for your hot-and-heavy sexual adventures.”
Finally, an opening to turn this conversation around. “More like misadventures. Have you ever had a guy make you cum with nothing but a car speaker? The other day, we—”
Flush…
Oh shit.
There was someone else in the bathroom.
And they’d just heard about me and Hudson.
My stomach washed away with that flush. Every neuron in my body vibrated until I was sure they would pull me apart.
Then the door to stall three opened. Addie stepped out, jaw fully dropped.
“You’re having sex with the new guy? Like, that wasn’t Jared just pulling stuff out of his ass back at the bar a few weeks ago? You’re actually having sex with him?”
He’d been working here for a while, so new guy seemed like an ungenerous characterization of him. Still…
“We weren’t having sex then.”
“And now?”
“I’m not…not having sex with him” was my brilliant reply.
For a split second, I worried that Addie was going to take this news badly. As it turned out, I was right, but not for the reasons I suspected.
“You told the new girl before me?”
She was jealous. Addie was jealous. It took me back to the drinks night at Josie’s; she’d been trying to befriend me then, and I’d shut her out.
“I wasn’t going to tell anyone,” I said by way of defense. “She guessed.”
“I’m extremely perceptive,” Leelah said. “Which is how I know that you’re super stoked to be in on the secret now.”
Addie practically vibrated, her eyes lighting up.
Apparently, being second to know wasn’t so bad when the possibility of friendship was on the table.
“Are you kidding me? I’m dying for some girl talk.
For all everyone talks about this being girlie central, there’s an awful lot of testosterone swimming around in the office pool.
Is this it? Am I in the inner circle now?
Can we please go full girl gang on this bitch? Sex and the City vibes?”
I’d forgotten how exuberant Addie could be. Once upon a time, I found that rattling. Now, endearing. She just wanted to belong.
“As much as there is an inner circle, sure,” I said with a smirk.
“Fuckin’ A. Now, how are we going to celebrate our female empowerment era? Do either of you like weed brownies? I made some today, but we can go to my place and make some more soon. You all could make treats, too. We could have a bake-off.”
Neither of us had any experience with canna-baking, so we declined the bake-off invite, but as we returned to the office, we fell into an easy rapport.
By the time Hudson and I linked up after work for cocktails at a cute bar far from the office, I was practically glowing. I’d done something right. I’d been doing things right and people were noticing. Maybe I wasn’t such a failure. Maybe I could handle letting go a bit.
Hudson, on the other hand, didn’t pass the vibe check. He did his best to chitchat at all the right places, even touching my knee below the bar and whispering about the further study he wanted to do in my toy drawer tonight, but it all came out perfunctory, like his mind was elsewhere.
“What’s going on in that brain of yours?” I finally asked. “You’re like an electron caught in a direct-current circuit.”
“Hm?”
“You’re sluggish. Your energy’s zapped. Are you okay?”
For the last ten minutes, I’d been trying to figure out what I’d done to upset him. Usually when people got this way around me, I was the culprit of their emotional sabotage.
“I’m still thinking about our all-hands today,” he said, swirling the cherry-pink dregs of his pina colada. “Do you really think that marketing approach is the smartest thing?”
“It does seem like a solid strategy. People don’t believe companies. They believe other people. And in the end, I think Terrence was right. Most consumers don’t buy a product based on what it can do but how they think it will make them feel.”
Hudson wouldn’t look at me, so I had to observe him in the patinaed mirror lining the back of the cocktail bar.
“I just can’t imagine people who would tell the world about their sexual desires,” he muttered.
“Sexual desires aren’t shameful,” I reminded him. It was my motto while working at BuzzCorp. My guiding star.
“They might not be shameful,” he countered. “It’s just that people can shame you for them. People are judgmental. Small-minded.”
That was true. We saw it everywhere we looked—in legislation trying to ban the sale of sex toys, in apps designed to monitor your partner’s or family member’s porn consumption, in politicians excluding sexual health materials from freedom-of-speech laws.
People could be judgmental and take that prejudice to extremes.
I couldn’t fault him for thinking something that was patently true.
“Is that why you play your fantasies so close to the chest?” I asked. “You know I’ll never judge you, right?”
“I wasn’t entirely truthful earlier,” he muttered. “When we were talking about my ex-girlfriend. I did…I tried to communicate some things I was interested in. She laughed at me. Basically called me a freak. I never brought it up again. I hated feeling so…so wrong.”
“There’s nothing wrong about you, Hudson. And anyone who won’t accept you like you are isn’t worth your time.”
Finally, he turned from the mirror. His lips quirked. “You’re right. She wasn’t the one. But still, those are strong words coming from a girl who only let herself make friends a few weeks ago.”
“I’m learning. And what’s the point of knowledge if you don’t pass it on?” I teased.
I thought he might say more. Might accept my advice and admit that I was right, that it was good and healthy to embrace oneself, no matter the social consequences.
But I should have known better. He couldn’t do that.
Instead, he shifted the subject. “Good point. Now, what sex toy knowledge are you going to pass on to me tonight?”
I mulled it over. Then I put my hand on his knee. My pussy clenched for the wanting of him. “What do you know about cock rings?”