Short Story

AIDA: Attention, Interest, Desire, Action

It turns out that exhibitionism is a drug, for me at least

I know he watches me.

I assume he watches all of us. When he promoted me to Global Solutions Director — that’s ‘sales and marketing manager’ in case you were wondering, and I direct the cardboard packaging solutions that ten people sell to a grateful globe — the biggest perk wasn’t the parking spot or the private health insurance, it was the privacy of my own office. No more open plan, hot desking hell. If I wanted to take a few minutes out to check Insta or swipe right for Friday night, I could. I was queen of my two square metre realm. Or so I thought.

Luckily I spotted the camera on my first day in the role, before I’d sat at my desk. I know more about cardboard than air conditioning, but even I know a ceiling vent doesn’t need an LED illuminating its depths. There was no tell-tale red glow when I came back from a mid-morning toilet break — believe me, I checked everywhere in that stall before I sat down — so I deduced the light only comes on when he’s actively watching.

I’ve seen the same light in Laura’s office. She’s the unfortunately acronymed Talent Acquisition and Retention Director, which is what I and the rest of the talent have to call our HR manager. My first impression of her, given she shows even more cleavage than intelligence, was that she should be a Technician not a Director.

Mo has one in his office too, so our boss isn’t just trying to look down his team’s blouses. I don’t know if he’s worried about us wasting time or stealing stationery, but we are watched. Mo is Warehouse and Shipping Manager, by the way; he’s too blue collar to deserve a fancy title, I guess.

I set up a photo frame on my desk to reflect the vent, so at least I’d know when he was looking over my shoulder, and resigned myself to still being bored at work.

I found a way to entertain myself, and gain some small revenge on a petty, controlling man. I assume Laura found it first. I set up a meeting with her to check my suspicions, and I kept an eye on her light. It didn’t stay on as long as mine; not nearly as long. He may not have set up his surveillance to creep on us but he has a good angle for it, and her breasts either embarrass or frustrate him. Whichever it is, he can’t bear them on his monitor for long before switching to someone else. There’s a third possibility of course, which is that they excite him so much he can complete his own excitement in under thirty seconds. But he could just watch porn if he wanted a wank: there won’t be a camera in his office. No, her cleavage was obviously making him even more uncomfortable than his cameras made me.

So I bought some new tops.

Continuing professional development is important in any role, and I’m always learning. When I changed my wardrobe, I learnt two things about myself. One, I was excited when the light came on, and two, I was disappointed when it blinked off. They’re the same insight, really: I like being seen. That’s a personal quality that doesn’t help me in my job, but I figured it would help with my boredom.

So I bought some new bras.

It turns out that exhibitionism is a drug, for me at least. I developed a tolerance. After a few weeks of putting the girls on the buy-level shelf, the excitement began to wane.

So I bought some new skirts, and one or two other things.

I wasn’t certain the camera could see my thighs, but in my head it could, and that was enough. I did move a filing cabinet to give me an excuse to swivel side-on occasionally; I’m a proactive problem-solver.

I’m always learning, but I don’t always learn the right things. For instance, I didn’t learn the full implications of exhibitionism being a drug for which I quickly develop a tolerance. Showing the boss my stocking tops was fun for a month or two, then I got bored.

So I bought an executive toy.

I hadn’t even been in the job long enough to produce an annual report before I was locking my door and livening up a dull Wednesday afternoon with a Lush Bullet. The thought of him switching my camera on to see me apparently playing on my phone but then gripping the arms of my chair and arching my back… well, that’s what helped my back arch. For a little while, at least, but then the novelty wore off.

So I bought a new office chair.

It has a built-in shiatsu massager. I know that doesn’t sound very sexy, and truth be told I have no idea what it does sound like because I’ve never used it. But as far as my sales team are concerned, it sounds a lot like a vibrator.

I’d only used the bullet for two weeks before I started taking my knickers off, laying them on my desk in front of the photo frame, hitching my skirt up, spreading my legs wide enough that he could probably see my suspenders, and exploring wonderland with a rabbit instead.

It became my 3pm routine. Most of the time, I couldn’t even tell you if the light came on or not; the possibility was enough. Somehow, not knowing was even more delicious. And that seemed to be the peak for me. I’d found a level that fed my habit, consistently, without making it grow.

Until yesterday, at 3:02.

I’ve just put my knickers on the desk when my phone rings. I don’t get calls at work: nothing’s that urgent, even in the fast-paced world of cardboard packaging solutions. I pick up, intending to get rid of whoever it is as soon as possible and get back to my routine.

It’s my boss. “Red. They suit you. I like the roses.”

So do I, that’s why I bought them. I’ve got a white pair at home.

For some reason, in my mind the cameras were the sort of low-resolution, black-and-white CCTV you occasionally see in crime reports. Apparently they’re not. They’re colour, and with enough pixels to identify little lace flowers. “Shit. Am I fired?”

“No. You’re good at your job, when you’re concentrating on it. Did you anticipate this moment?”

If I had, would I have started? “No. I never imagined you’d call when I was about to — ”

“I meant your regular masturbation session. Did you get excited as three o’clock approached? Did your cunt get wet in anticipation?”

I’m always learning. Today’s lesson is that my pussy likes hearing a man refer to it as a cunt, and it quivers with appreciation. “Yes.”

“What does your anticipation smell like?”

“I don’t know!”

“Find out. Sniff your panties.”

“Me?!”

“Well I can hardly come in there and sniff them for you. That would be inappropriate. They’re right in front of you; lift them to your nose and inhale, deeply. Tell me what you smell like.”

How do I look with my knickers held up to my nose like they’re a glass of fine wine? Ridiculous, or ridiculously sexy? I don’t care, because I smell good. “A delicate, musky bouquet. Earthy, but with mid notes of soft, honey sweetness. And a hint of sweat, maybe. Clean sweat. Like warm skin after a hot bath.”

“And desire?”

“Yes.” Sex. I smell like sex before semen sours it.

“A more exciting scent than cardboard.”

“Yes.”

“Are you going to masturbate now?”

Am I? Can I? “Do I have to?”

“Of course not, I’m sure you have work you could do instead. But if you choose to masturbate, I promise to watch. Would you like that?”

So what the hell has he got against Laura’s cleavage? Maybe it’s just that she frustrates him by not showing anything more. With me, he gets to see my splayed thighs, and my arm moving in a suggestive way, and my head tilting back as I orgasm, and, “Yes, please. Watch me.”

“Turn round, then.”

Oh fuck. I thought he meant he’d watch over my shoulder. So is voyeurism a drug too? Has he built up a tolerance, and now he needs more to get the same rush? If that’s the case, it would be cruel to deny him. I swap my phone for my vibrator, and swivel around.

I can’t look at the vent, at the camera; at him. Usually I wait until I’m comfortable and ready for some fantasy to carry me away, but today I need to maintain the illusion of an unknown observer so I close my eyes immediately. And with that defence in place, I can switch up my routine.

I stand, undo my skirt, and let it fall.

A quiet, tinny voice behind me says, “Pubic hair. I approve.”

I don’t need his approval, and I definitely didn’t need my illusion shattered. I’m seen, and I can’t lie to myself about that. My boss is going to watch me masturbate, because I’m going to let him. Because I want him to.

I perch on the edge of my chair, lean back, and spread my legs. My pussy… no, my cunt — I can hear his voice saying that word, and I can feel my cunt responding — is on his desk, in his office, in glorious high-definition. Can he zoom in? Can he get a close-up view of how wet I am? Can he see the sheen on my lips glinting in the warm halogen light?

“You’re so wet.”

He can see. This isn’t exhibitionism anymore, this is a performance. And my performance reviews are always positive.

I won’t switch the vibrator on yet. I draw the head up between my lips, bringing my lubrication to my clit. There’s no crude word for clit he could say that would make it throb more than it already is, nothing I could do cruder than showing it to him.

No: one thing cruder. As I bring the head back down to my vagina — my hole, my warm, wet fuckhole — he might be sharing his screen with my colleagues, my customers, anyone. I could be streaming to the world, to thousands of hungry eyes, to anonymous men who ache to fill my cunt with their cocks as they watch me fill it with my toy.

I push, slowly — those men wouldn’t be slow, they’d be too eager, too needy not to ram their cocks home — and they watch as the gently curved head sinks inside me.

The men watching me would go deep — balls deep — but I only need enough to reach my G-spot. When the tip rubs against it, and I clench around the shaft in response, I turn the vibrator on.

I don’t know if the cameras have microphones, but my audience will know I’ve hit my target because I bite my lip to stop myself from squealing. I have to: my team are within earshot, and nobody enjoys a shiatsu massage this much. But shiatsu does mean ‘finger pressure’, so it’s not exactly a lie.

If I push the base down, the vibrating ‘fingers’ put more pressure on my G-spot and I can try for a deep, vaginal orgasm; if I pull up, the rabbit’s ears make firmer contact and I can go for a quick, tingling clitoral orgasm. There’s an optimum position that stimulates both equally, but I’m not interested in that today.

I raise and lower my hand, the vibrator’s head dipping and bobbing in response, the ears pressing and releasing, the shaft always rubbing the walls of my cunt; my dripping, throbbing, greedy, needy cunt. Two orgasms are building inside me, two sources of warmth and wonder competing for control of my body like those men would compete to be the one who made lo — who fucked me. Two potential orgasms, ebbing and flowing in turn, but always trending upwards, like my sales graphs, like my career, my success, my shamelessness, my wilful, joyful degradation.

Two orgasms, fighting for my pleasure. Which one will win?

The one I feed.

If I feed my G-spot, I won’t be able to stay silent when I come. If I come. So I’ll feed the reliable, relaxing release of a quick clitoral orgasm. My hand stops rising and falling, leaving the ears resting over my clit. As the effervescent tingling crawls across my skin, spreading outward, making my thighs twitch and my hands shake, leaving me quivering at the peak, I tip my head back and will myself over the edge.

He’s never seen my O face before. He hasn’t seen my mouth silently open wide as my eyes screw shut, and then relax into a blissful smile, as my body relaxes, the unnoticed tension in my thighs, in my belly, in my fingers, slipping away.

I turn the vibrator off and let it go. It falls out of me, like my mind.

From behind me, his voice interrupts my reverie. “Thank you. Shall we make this a regular thing? I can block out a daily slot in my diary.”

That was yesterday.

I’m going to disappoint him at three o’clock today. There’ll be no underwear on my desk.

Because I’m not wearing any.

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