ME: Who did you lose?
VIK: Ink’s for one of my brothers. We like to think Bingo’s just riding on ahead scouting. Gonna catch up with him someday.
Sometimes you have to let people go. We both know this. And sometimes...maybe sometimes they’re not gone—just riding up ahead and out of sight, and someday you’ll turn the corner and catch up. I like the thought of that.
He wants to know what my day looks like, so I send him a selfie of me making crazed eyeballs over an enormous stack of file folders. He offers to swing by my office and help me clear off that desk; I counter by telling him that you have to have an appointment to get anywhere near my...desk.
He likes that.
After that, we just keep texting. Weeks pass like this and in the meantime, I pack up my suite at the Bellagio and move into my newly leased condo—getting Bing back forced me find something quick.
I know Vik and I are just friends with benefits, but apparently one of the unexpected benefits is having someone to talk to. With. Because Vik listens and he asks questions and...
Yeah. I don’t know what I’m thinking, either.
We had wild, crazy, onetime, up-against-a-window sex, and I liked that. Okay. I freaking loved it, but I’m currently pretending that we absolutely didn’t do something so publicly dirty. Or that I kind of want to do it again with my new friend. In fact, thinking about the awesome sex I had two weeks ago with Vik is what makes me late for work this morning. I’ve never mastered the fine art of jilling in the shower. Balancing and rubbing on all that tile in my new place isn’t my strong point, so when the urge to rub one out gets too strong to ignore, I head back to bed.
I slide between the sheets, shove my fingers between my legs and start up a go-to fantasy in my head. I’m backstage at a concert, and the band’s just coming offstage. They’re all big and sweaty, adrenaline and power rolling off them because they know they’ve got an entire crowd at their feet and they fucking love it. But then the lead singer spots me waiting by the side of the stage and he beckons me over. We don’t make it to the green room. He just yanks up my skirt and tears open his jeans, and then he’s slamming into me and we’re perfect together. The rest of the band is watching or walking on, and I know other crew members and groupies can see us. But the singer’s mine.
I look up and realize it’s no singer. It’s Vik pounding into me hard, his eyes watching mine as he gives me what I want. And I’m right there, teetering on the brink of a motherfucking huge orgasm, my thighs and my butt tensing as I ride my fingers straight toward the almighty finish line. Faster and faster, my fingers rubbing and circling right where I need him the most, and then what seems like the entire motorcycle club suddenly surrounds us, a band of brothers dedicated to lending a helping hand, and I come so hard that I see stars.
So I’m more than a little out of breath after finishing my ménage à moi. My new condo is also farther from my office than before, and I’m still getting used to traffic. It’s a one-bedroom tucked into a new high-rise. The walls are white, the carpet’s white, even the appliances are a gleaming stainless steel. I feel like I’ve landed inside an igloo or some chic pied-à-terre in Antarctica—and I like it. It’s a fresh start while I figure out who I am now.
Which is late. Very, very, inexcusably late. So late that I have to sprint from the parking garage to the elevator. Eighteen floors are barely enough to suck in some air and check my buttons and seams in the elevator mirrors. No woman wants to walk into her office with her skirt tucked into her panties.
Even if it is a really good skirt. My Dolce & Gabbana skirt hugs my butt and hips before flaring out over my knees. They make skirts in crazy prints like pineapples, fish and cabbage roses, but this one is a perfectly sensible, entirely professional black. The little black bow at the throat of my Kate Spade blouse is as much fun as I had when I got dressed today. Who’s going to trust his bankroll to a woman wearing pineapples on her skirt?
I inhale, exhale. Today’s going to be a great day. I’ve got this. The door dings open softly as I finish my affirmation. I love our office, and not just because it has the kind of steel-and-chrome good looks that star in architectural porn. Money has a smell. On a good day when the market’s playing out how we predicted, we practically print that shit here. On a bad day, the senior partners scream at their junior mini-mes and head downtown to drown their woes. Being able to hold your alcohol is a requirement for scoring a corner office and a seat with the big boys, as is an advanced degree in bullshitting and spotting a market trend and riding that big boy straight into the money.
Finance is still very much a boy’s world. Like a handful of women, I’ve muscled my way in and I’m allowed to stay as long as I bring in the green, but despite the ubiquitous presence of both a boys’ and a girls’ bathroom, finance is a male sandbox. It’s just that possessing a vagina instead of a dick is no longer an automatic bar to entry.
Margie
