My phone buzzed before I had finished my first coffee.
Not the apartment chat.
A new one.
Girl Talk
Leah:
Hello.
Leah:
Dan gave me your numbers.
Leah:
I wanted to thank you both for yesterday.
I stared at the screen.
Across the room, Lin’s phone buzzed too.
Lin:
For shouting at him?
Leah:
For making him understand that photographing someone and sharing the photograph are two separate permissions.
Leah:
He genuinely did not understand that.
You:
Yeah. He has some gaps.
Leah:
Several.
Leah:
But he listened once it was explained, which is better than most men manage.
Lin looked over at me.
“Do we have a girls’ chat now?”
I looked back at the screen.
“Apparently.”
Another message appeared.
Leah:
Also, he describes both of you terribly.
You:
Excuse me?
Leah:
Not negatively. Just clumsily.
Leah:
Like he is carefully describing around something.
You:
That sounds like Dan.
Lin:
Very much so.
Leah:
Before this progresses, should I know anything important?
Leah:
Secret wife? Unusual collection of human teeth?
You:
No teeth that I know of.
Lin:
He is mostly harmless.
Leah:
“Mostly”?
You:
He has poor judgment and excellent stamina.
Lin:
🤦
Leah:
Noted.
Leah:
Any particular fetish responsible for the complicated relationship history, or is this simply his personality?
You:
Why do you assume his relationships are complicated?
Leah:
Because uncomplicated men do not describe two women this carefully.
Lin:
Did he say anything?
Leah:
Nope. Perfect gentleman.
Leah:
But I got the impression the three of you have been involved with each other at some point.
Leah:
Very strange signals whenever he talked about you two.
You:
“Weird Signals” Dan. That’s what we call him.
Lin:
Yeah, it’s complicated. Not something to unpack over text.
Leah:
But you are both okay with me having sex with him?
Lin:
He is a free man. He isn’t tied to either of us.
You:
Yeah. We don’t own him.
Leah:
Okay, good.
Leah:
We used protection and avoided exchanging fluids, in case you have some kind of open relationship or polycule arrangement.
You:
A what now?
Lin:
Er… no. We definitely do not have one of those.
Lin:
But thanks for telling us.
I logged into work and found a meeting invitation I had been expecting somewhere in the back of my mind for a while.
Performance Discussion
Invitees: Miriam Williams, Johanna Eriksson, Martin Cole
No agenda.
No message.
Just thirty minutes blocked out in the middle of my morning.
“I’m gonna get fired.”
Lin looked over from the couch.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
The meeting was in an hour, so I found the most formal shirt I owned that did not require buttons all the way down. It had not been ironed, but it was better than my hoodie. I also put on pants, even though nobody on the call would see them.
It felt important to be fully dressed while being professionally executed.
I spent the next forty minutes going through everything that might be used against me.
Outstanding tasks. Slack messages. Emails I had marked unread and then forgotten about. Meeting notes that should probably have been uploaded somewhere. I checked every project channel for my name and searched for words like late, blocked and waiting.
There was nothing catastrophic.
Just a collection of small things.
A reply sent the following morning instead of that afternoon. A report that had needed two reminders. A meeting I had missed because I had forgotten to put it in my calendar. Nothing that should get somebody fired on its own.
Together, though, they started to look like a pattern.
At exactly ten, I clicked the meeting link.
The empty call opened with my own face staring back at me. I adjusted the laptop so the camera was not looking up my nose and waited.
At one minute past, HR joined.
Johanna was a round-faced woman with large glasses and a carefully neutral smile. She introduced herself and said it was a pleasure to meet me.
It was not a pleasure to meet her.
Martin joined a minute later without apologizing.
He was somewhere in his forties and managed twenty-five people, which meant I saw him for fifteen minutes twice a month when neither of us canceled. Most of those meetings consisted of him asking whether I needed anything and me saying no because there was never enough time to explain what I actually needed.
I was properly managed.
Johanna said she would kick things off.
She explained that concerns had been raised about my recent performance. Several commitments had slipped, responses had sometimes been delayed, and members of the project team felt I was no longer keeping production moving as effectively as expected.
Someone had apparently described me as burnt out.
That felt oddly personal coming from an unnamed colleague.
Johanna was careful to say the project being behind schedule was not being blamed entirely on me. There were several contributing factors.
Then she explained that some people believed production had become a bottleneck.
That part was apparently mine.
Martin nodded while she spoke. He did not add anything.
For the next four weeks, another producer would be assigned to support the project. I would be placed on a Performance Improvement Plan with weekly goals, closer follow-up and clearly defined expectations for the quality and timeliness of my work.
Support.
Meaning somebody else would start doing part of my job while they decided whether I was still needed.
Johanna said they had high confidence that I could return to the expected level of performance.
Martin nodded again.
I wondered if he had read the document before the meeting.
I would receive it by email and needed to sign to confirm that I had received and understood it. Johanna asked if I had any questions.
I had several.
Who had complained?
How long had they been discussing this without me?
Why had Martin never mentioned any of it during our fifteen-minute management festivals?
What happened after four weeks if they decided I had not improved enough?
Instead, I said, “No. I understand.”
Johanna thanked me for being professional.
Martin said we would talk during our next one-to-one.
Then the meeting ended.
My face returned to the center of the screen.
I sat there for a moment, staring at myself in my wrinkled shirt.
“Okay,” I said. “Not fired yet.”
I closed the laptop and leaned back on the couch.
I wasn’t sure whether that counted as good news.
My phone was lying face down beside the table. I turned it over, almost without thinking.
No notifications.
No missed messages.
Just the same lock screen staring back at me.
I frowned, locked it again, and set it down.
A few seconds later, I realized what I’d been expecting.
I smiled despite myself.
Around lunch, the girls’ chat lit up again.
Leah sent an image.
Dan sat beside her at a long table, holding up a divided tray of pale chicken, rice and vegetables that looked as though they had spent the afternoon under a heat lamp as punishment.
Leah:
Corporate catering.
Leah:
Feeding a thousand people was always going to create quality problems.
I looked down at my bagel.
Cream cheese. Slightly burnt edge. One bite missing.
I took a picture.
You sent an image.
You:
Living high over here.
You:
Please try not to be jealous.
Leah:
Difficult. A bagel might actually be better than what we got here.
Herb cream cheese.
A girl has good taste.
A few seconds passed.
Leah:
One sec. Dan is going to send you something.
The apartment chat lit up.
Dan sent an image.
The photo showed Leah sitting sideways on the window ledge in the same hotel room as the picture from the night before.
She was naked, but that was not the first thing I noticed.
The dawn light behind her outlined her body in gold. She sat folded over her legs, her back turned toward the camera, long dark hair draped over one shoulder. Most of the image was her back, the curve of her waist and the light gathering along the edge of her skin.
Her ass was visible. So was the side of one breast.
But it did not look like Dan had caught her naked.
It looked like someone had planned the entire morning around that window.
The girls’ chat buzzed again.
Leah:
There.
Leah:
I had a longer discussion with Dan about photographs and sharing.
Leah:
He is allowed to keep that one and share it with you two, but nobody else.
Leah:
The same applies to both of you, obviously.
Leah:
If Dan and I stop seeing each other, he deletes it.
Lin looked over at me from the couch.
I was still staring at the picture.
You:
I thought you were hot in last night’s photo, but damn, woman.
Lin:
I agree with Mia’s statement.
Leah:
I was aiming for “hot damn, woman,” but I guess I can do better.
Lin:
Please do not take that as a challenge.
You:
Absolutely take it as a challenge.
I went back to work.
About twenty minutes later, my phone pinged again.
Not the apartment chat.
Not Girl Talk.
A private message from Leah.
Leah sent an image.
Leah:
You said to take it as a challenge.
Just for you.
It was the same window, but a different pose.
Leah leaned against the frame and looked directly at the camera. Her hair covered one breast, the other fully visible. Her legs were crossed beneath her, but not enough to hide the soft outline between them.
This one was not distant or accidental.
This one had been made for me.
You:
Hot fucking damn, woman.
That is sexy as fuck.
Leah:
I knew I could do it. 🥇
I checked the time and decided I could make a quick run to the store for dinner. Some meat for our noodles, maybe a vegetable or two. Something that wouldn’t make us anemic.
It was my turn, since Lin had done the store run yesterday, and I did not feel like going back to work just yet.
I put on some shoes and headed to the Trade Fair for groceries.
Spring onions, bok choy, chicken in bits.
This was going to be fancy.
I stopped in front of the wine shelves while mentally assembling dinner.
I wonder what Leah drinks.
My first instinct was red. She had the kind of confidence that made me think she would order something dry with a French name and quietly judge anyone who asked for ice.
Then I remembered the photo Dan had sent.
She had been holding a wine cooler.
Was that actually what she liked, or just what the corporate drink tickets covered?
I stared at the bottles for another few seconds before it hit me.
Leah doesn’t care whether I know what she drinks. Why am I even trying to figure it out?
“Get a grip,” I muttered, reaching for the bottle Lin and I always bought.
Lin started making dinner while I was wrapping up my workday, and I wandered into the kitchen to see if I could help.
She was already well into it, so I took a small spoon and tasted the broth she had made for the noodles.
I made a face. “Needs more umami.”
Lin gave me a look.
“Listen to you,” she said. “One season of MasterChef and suddenly you’re judging ramen.”
She reached for the salt.
“This is our umami.”
We ate dinner in the kitchen. I updated Lin on what had happened at work, and she gave me a rundown of the lectures she needed to attend over the next few weeks. Every item on the list seemed to come with another assignment attached.
Once we finished, we moved to the couch with our bottle of wine. I turned on a dating show where one woman was trying to decide which of twenty men she wanted to end up with.
Poor woman.
I picked up my phone.
No new messages.
I stared at the screen for a moment.
Fine.
Time to fix that.
Me:
Hey Leah, what you guys doing?
Leah:
Drinking.
The offsite officially wraps today. Tomorrow is just travel, so we’re attempting to bankrupt the open bar.
Me:
And how much have you been drinking?
Leah:
You are not my supervisor!
…I’d say seven.
Maybe eight.
Lin:
So, you are properly sloppy?
Leah:
Sufficiently intoxicated to say what I’m thinking.
Insufficiently intoxicated to regret it tomorrow.
Speaking of…
I’ve just realised something.
Me:
Oh?
Leah:
Dan apparently has no picture of the two of you.
Or, at least not one he’s willing to show me.
You’ve seen far more of me than I have of you.
Lin looked at me.
Lin:
Well, that’s reassuring.
At least he knows which photos are his to share.
Me:
Okay…
How do you propose we fix that?
Leah:
Do your phones have cameras?
You’re not vampires, are you? You do show up in digital photographs?
Lin:
I’m not sending nudes to a woman I’ve never met.
Leah:
Nothing so crude.
Though I would like to point out that you’ve both seen me naked several times.
Me:
😊
Lin:
Fine.
Give me a second.
Lin pulled me closer on the couch and wrapped an arm around my shoulders. She held her phone up high and smiled.
I put on the biggest, dumbest grin I could manage and looked at the camera.
Click.
Lin: Sent an image.
Leah:
Well…
That is unquestionably a photograph.
Lin:
What?
Leah:
No no, it’s fine. I send an artistic nude, and get the equivalent of a bro high five in return.
I’ll have another drink. Perhaps I’ll forget the insult.
Me:
😞– Dan has a boob pic if it will cheer you up.
Leah:
Oh, does he now? So he gets boob pics?
Me:
…No?
It was a bet. He is not sharing it right?
Leah:
No, you have shown him the path. He won’t stray from it now.
Me:
Give us time, we’ll get you a better picture.
Leah:
Send me something that makes me wish I was there.
It’s 21:32.
You’ve got ninety minutes before I become an unreliable critic, also the bar closes at ten.
I turned to Lin.
“Okay. Time to step up. I want a picture that rivals the one she sent us.”
Lin laughed.
“Mia, she’s a professional. We can’t compete with that.”
“Can’t win, maybe.”
I stood up and held out a hand.
“But we can try.”
I downloaded some ridiculous timer app that took a photo every ten seconds and set it up on the tripod. “Continuous capture,” I said, trying to sound professional. “So we get options.”
Lin gave me a look that said she knew exactly how this was going to go. “Options. Sure.”
The first few shots were almost artistic. Lin against the wall, soft lighting, one knee bent.
*Click*
Me behind her, hands on her waist, lips on her shoulder.
*Click*
Both of us standing close, my breasts pressed to her back, hands covering the important bits.
*Click*
Then it fell apart.
I pushed Lin onto the bed. “On your back. Legs open a little. Like you’re offering.”
*Click*
I climbed between her thighs to “check the framing,” and to make sure my ass was on full display. I started to go down on her, slowly, dragging my tongue over her clit. Lin moaned, hips twitching.
*Click*
“Fuck, Mia…”
I sucked her clit into my mouth and her hand flew to my hair.
*Click*
She was getting close when I pulled back, breathing hard.
“Come here,” I told her, voice rough. “I want to ride your face.”
Lin’s eyes darkened. For a second I saw something flicker across her expression, that hungry, eager little spark she usually kept buried. She licked her lips.
“…Yeah?” Her voice was quieter. “You want me to serve you?”
The words hit me low in the belly. I climbed up her body and straddled her face before I could overthink it. “Make me come.”
*Click*
Lin moaned like the order itself turned her on. She grabbed my ass with both hands and pulled me down onto her mouth. Her tongue immediately went to work, long, flat strokes, then circling my clit, then pushing inside me. I rocked my hips, grinding against her face, smearing my wetness across her mouth and chin.
*Click*
Every shutter sound reminded me we were being photographed. The thought only made me ride her harder. Lin was moaning into my pussy, the vibrations shooting through me. She was getting messy, spit and my juices all over her face, but she didn’t pull away. If anything, she held me tighter, like she wanted to drown in it.
I leaned forward, bracing one hand on the bed, and slid the other down between her legs. She was already soaked. I pushed two fingers into her without warning and felt her press hard against me.
“Fuck, just like that,” I gasped, riding her faster while I fucked her with my fingers. “You like being used, don’t you?”
*Click*
Lin whimpered against me. Her nails dug into my ass. She was breathing hard through her nose, tongue working desperately while I curled my fingers inside her. That suppressed little submissive streak was right there under the surface, the way she melted when I told her what to do, the eager little sounds she made when I used her face and filled her at the same time.
*Click*
I came hard, grinding down on her tongue, thighs shaking around her head. At the same moment I felt her clench tight around my fingers and moan straight into me, her whole body tensing as she came too.
*Click*
I kept rocking through it, riding out every pulse while she licked me clean and twitched around my fingers.
When I finally climbed off, Lin’s face was flushed and shiny. She looked up at me with glassy eyes, lips swollen, breathing ragged.
*Click*
She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and smiled at me.
We were both wrecked now. Sweaty, trembling, the room smelling like sex and vanilla.
I collapsed half on top of her, cheek on her chest, one leg thrown across her hips so my thigh covered her pussy. Her arm came around my back automatically, fingers tracing lazy circles on my skin. We were a tangled, glowing mess.
The timer kept going.
*Click*
“That one,” she said softly. “Send that.”
It wasn’t posed. It wasn’t trying to be sexy. It was just us, fucked out, comfortable, intimate. My face on her tit, her fingers in my messy hair, both of us soft and real.
Eventually, I got up and got my phone. I stopped the timer app and opened the Girl Talk group:
Me:
Sent a photo
Me:
Took us long enough.
Leah:
Now that’s more like it. You really took my request to heart. 👄
I dropped the phone and hid my face between Lin’s breasts again.
“We are so fucked,” I mumbled.
Lin just laughed softly and held me tighter.