Sex with a Sting: Six Erotic Fantasies with a Kink in the Tail (13 page)

Just outside Claire’s office, obscured
from view, Zoe stood stock still, iPhone in hand, recording the moment when
Claire exploded in orgasm, her body convulsing violently, her nails dragging
down Paolo’s back, her eyes closed, expletives somersaulting from her mouth.
“Dirty little slut,” Zoe whispered under her breath. “Not quite so perfect now,
are we?”

Claire and Zoe had met at University and
quickly became best friends. They lived together even after graduation. Both
seemed on course for reasonably successful careers; Claire in accounting, Zoe
in Public Relations. But then, one evening in the early part of the century,
they were at home watching, as they often did,
Sex and the City,
when
the kernel of a big idea sprouted between them. As usual, they were
scrutinising the wardrobes of the four characters. Carrie always came out on
top (although some of her outfits they both found hard to credit), but they
were also impressed by the fashion styles of Sam, Charlotte and Miranda in
different episodes. “Wouldn’t it be great,” said Zoe suddenly, “if you could
just walk into a shop and buy something in the ‘Carrie’ section. It would save
so much bother.”

There was a pause for a moment before
Claire excitedly replied: “That is an…
incredible
idea!” That evening,
GetMeHerLook.com was born. It was a simple enough premise: a website that
sorted clothes and fashion into sections relating to their favourite TV
characters. Together, they scoured fashion sites for specific clothes and
accessories that they felt suited the styles of characters like Carrie (Sarah
Jessica Parker), Rachel (Jennifer Aniston) in
Friends
, Gabrielle (Eva
Longoria) in
Desperate Housewives
, and Phoebe (Alyssa Milano) in
Charmed
.

It began as a hobby that they worked on
in the evenings and at weekends. They would simply link to clothes on other
websites that they felt fitted the characters. A free, fun service. As traffic
increased, however, they realised that they could take commission when their
click-throughs turned into sales. They began negotiating associate deals with
companies and they added new character styles to their site almost every week
– in some cases even finding fashions of today that would have fitted
classic characters from the past, such as Diana Rigg’s Mrs Emma Peel in the
original
Avengers
series.

Within a year, they had both quit their
jobs to concentrate on the site. It was a real slog at first and several times
they had serious discussions about letting the whole thing go under, but they
always found some way to keep going and eventually their graft and
inventiveness paid dividends. The key to really taking off as a business was
when they started selling clothing themselves after making deals directly with
manufacturers and designers and adding those products to their existing
business of showcasing particular styles from a handful of High Street fashion
stores.

A decade on, though, fissures had opened
up between the partners. While Claire was happy to continue their gradual
growth and development, Zoe was becoming increasingly impatient and wanted to
surge forward. They were growing apart at an alarming rate. Both of them had
got married, but while Claire seemed to become ever more conservative,
seemingly more interested in her home life and leisure time than the business,
Zoe, in her opinion, had hardly changed. She still loved the thrilling lifestyle
of building the company, of networking, of making more money, and her home life
had never significantly impinged upon that.

Zoe had always believed Claire’s natural cautiousness
to be invaluable, but now she felt trapped by it. She could see so many
opportunities, but Claire was never willing to take risks and would never agree
to adapt the brand. In Zoe’s mind, they had stood still for three or four
years. Plenty of other businesses had taken important parts of their model and
were steaming ahead with new innovations that, she felt, meant they were in
danger of being left behind. Several times she had tried to persuade Claire to
take a back seat, or to concentrate on the accounting and the more mundane
sides of the business in the hopes she might get a freer hand in bringing in
new ideas. Claire, though, was reluctant to let go.

For example, it could not be ignored that
the culture of celebrity, while big in the early 2000s, had become
exponentially larger by the end of the decade. Zoe felt that they had to
reflect this on the site. She had campaigned for years to have style pages
focusing on the likes of Amy Childs from
The Only Way is Essex
or US
reality TV star Kim Kardashian. In Zoe’s mind, these kind of characters
represented huge potential business for the company and while she didn’t
exactly appreciate the kind of fashion these reality stars promoted, she knew
that a lot of young women did look to them for clothing ideas. To Zoe, it was
madness not to jump on that bandwagon.

Claire, however, was adamant. Firstly,
she refused to move from the original idea of only using characters from
fictional shows and movies, and secondly she felt using these kind of reality
stars would cheapen the site and send it too down market. She was happy to
include new characters such as Alicia Florrick (Julianna Margulies) and Kalinda
Sharma (Archie Punjabi) from
The Good Wife
, or Bel Rowley (Romola Garai)
from BBC period series,
The Hour
, but always refused suggestions of
reality stars. Zoe was furious at this snobbishness and, what’s more, she knew
that she had the support of the majority of their team on this issue. This
wasn’t a hobby any more, this was their livelihood and they could not afford to
ignore potential revenue streams.

They had argued many times over this
issue and others. Their relationship was deteriorating fast. True, the company
was still doing okay, but Zoe was positive it could do better, a lot better.
She was bitterly frustrated at Claire’s lack of support.

Now, however, she had leverage. She went
home and thought about it all weekend. Should she use it? Had it really come to
this? They were once closer than sisters. She tried to wipe the sentiment from
her mind. The business was what was important, and Claire had held it back for
too long.

The following Monday was the 22
^nd
of December. Everyone was in the office by 8.30am. Christmas was always a busy
time and they needed to be sure that the site was stable and that their
suppliers were working as efficiently as possible to ensure that they were able
to meet the demands of their clients.

Everyone, that is, except for Claire, who
came in at 9.30am, looking bright and unflustered as usual. She greeted
everyone but did her best not to meet Paolo’s eye. She had obsessed about their
moment of weakness all weekend. She shrank from her husband’s touch out of pure
guilt. She felt awful. She wanted to blame the alcohol, but she knew that she
had had plenty of opportunities to walk away from Paolo and had taken none of
them. They had fucked because she wanted to fuck him, because she desired him.
There was no getting away from that.

She stepped into her office, but before
she could even remove her coat and scarf, Zoe followed her in. “Hi Claire,
listen, can you come over to my office in a moment? I’ve got something we need
to go over.”

“Sure, be over in a tick.”

“Fancy a coffee, you two?” asked Lily,
sticking her head round the door.

“That would be lovely, thanks Lily,”
replied Claire.

“I’m fine. Already had two cups today,”
said Zoe, pointedly. If Claire noticed the dig, she didn’t react, and five
minutes later she was in Zoe’s office, warming her hands on a mug of white
coffee.

“So, what’s up?”

“Can you close the door, babe? Sorry,
this is a personal thing, sort of.”

“Ooh, sounds exciting,” said Claire,
gently clicking the door closed behind her.

“Can you come round here? I’ve got
something I need to show you on the laptop… Better just make sure the sound is
dipped a bit.”

“What is it?” At first, she couldn’t
quite tell – the camerawork was a little wobbly – but then she
realised it was her office. She immediately felt a kick in her stomach, as if
the wind had been knocked out of her. The sound was low, but she could still hear
the clanking of bodies against metal and, above that, her own voice: “Yes, yes,
yes, yes, oh
fuck
yes!” The camera moved slightly and now the whole scene
was visible. Paolo’s brown, firm arse clenching and unclenching, swaying back
and forth. His trousers round his ankles. Her naked leg up by his hip. Her head
over his shoulder, her face screwed up in ecstasy, her mouth open, as if she
was struggling to breathe. Bits and pieces toppling from the filing cabinet
onto the floor.

“Turn it off! Turn it off!” she
whispered.

“Wait,” said Zoe, smiling. “I like this
bit.” Claire’s high-pitched moans increased in velocity. The filing cabinet
looked like it might fall over. Claire saw her own nails drag down Paolo’s
back, leaving thick red marks. “That must’ve hurt,” giggled Zoe. “Ah, here it
comes… or should I say, here
she
comes.” Claire watched herself reach
her quick, shuddering orgasm, her face locked in frozen bliss. She watched
herself kiss Paolo’s neck, his shoulder.

“Turn it off, please.” Claire held her
face in her hands.

“It ends there anyway.”

Claire staggered to a chair. “This is
really, really embarrassing.”

“I should say so.”

“How did you get that?”

“Well, in the end the girls decided they
didn’t fancy another drink, so they went home. I just came back to the office
to grab my laptop and heard some funny goings on in your office.”

“And… and you
filmed
it?”

“Well, not at first. I just watched. I’ve
always wanted to see Paolo naked! As did you, apparently!”

“Oh God.” Claire wiped a tear from her
eye.

“And he didn’t disappoint, did he? I
thought he’d be…
big
. But wow. Just
wow
.”

There was a pause. Claire looked at her
friend. “But… why film it? I don’t get it.”

“Claire, listen. I’ve been trying to get
through to you for a couple of years now. This company needs to change. It’s
stuck in the mud. It’s not moving forward. We have to move with the times. We
have to surge on, to capitalise on our base. We need more investment, more
ideas. We need more clients, a greater depth of clients.”

“But we’re doing so well…”

“We’re doing
okay
. But we’re
stagnant. And you just don’t listen to me… Look… I never thought it would come
to this. You – you do still love your husband, don’t you?”

“Of course I do! I love Ben, you know I
do. Jesus, it was a mistake, a one time thing. I was drunk!”

“Is it
ever
a one time thing,
Claire?”

“It will be for me. I was drunk… he just…
seduced me.”

“Seduced
you
? You had him trapped
in that corner all night!”

“No! That was him! He kept buying me
drinks.”

“Look, it doesn’t really matter who
seduced who, Claire. I need to make some changes here and I’m afraid I think
it’s time you stepped down.”

“What?!” cried Claire, standing up.

“I think you need to stand down. You
don’t have to worry. This won’t get out to anyone. I’ll just say you’re looking
at new opportunities. I’ll make sure you’re properly compensated. No one needs
to know about this.”

“What do you mean ‘no one needs to know’?”

“You know what I mean.”

“I don’t think I do, Zoe.”

“You want me to spell it out for you?”

“I think you should. I need to know where
I stand.”

“Look, Claire, let’s not make this harder
than it already is. You resign and hand over your share of the company to me.
I’ll even let you keep a 5% holding if you like. You’ll get a nice pay-off. Go
home, start a family before it’s too late. I know that’s what you want. This is
your opportunity.”

“Or what?”

“Or this little sex tape might somehow
find its way to Ben’s hands.”

Claire was speechless.

“I didn’t want to have to say it, Claire.
I’m sorry. This is ugly and I didn’t want it to be like this. But you’ve given
me no option.”

“B-but… we built this place together.
We’re best friends, Zo…”

“Are we, Claire? Are we? When was the
last time we went out together, just you and me? Or discussed our private
lives? Or had any conversation that didn’t involve work? Face it, Claire, we
haven’t been BFFs for years.”

“But could I just stay and just run the…
run the… I don’t know… the accounting?”

“Claire, I’m blackmailing you with
footage I took of you fucking an employee. Do you really want to keep working
with me?”

Claire began crying. Zoe put her arm
round her. It was like the start of a divorce.

They talked for another hour and thrashed
out the basis of a deal. Claire would leave that evening and would not be
returning. The announcement would not be made to the rest of the staff until
the New Year. A new position of Business Manager would be created and the
search for someone to fill it would start in January. A fair settlement would
be agreed upon and the official reason for Claire’s exit would be that she
wanted to start a family and Zoe had offered to buy her out, although Claire
would retain a token 5% share. The footage would be erased from both Zoe’s
iPhone and her laptop. The incident would never be mentioned again.