[MF] Ensnared between rumor and reality at the office holiday party

This story happened a couple months back, but I haven’t been able to get it off my mind. It feels like every day I feel a new way about it: excitement, disbelief, confusion, pride, shame. I’ve been a fan of this subreddit for years, so my latest feeling is that walking it all back on here might be therapeutic in some way. I wrote this up a month or so ago and went back and forth on submitting it, but figured it couldn’t hurt. I’m sure I’ll feel differently about that in a day or two.

Though many contributing factors were already in play at that point, it all came to a head at my office holiday party back in December. I started the job at a big corporate beast back in the Spring, but remained a fresh-faced unknown to most people there as I resided deep at the bottom of the hierarchy totem pole. The party itself was an office party in every sense: the occasional bit of awkward small talk, but mostly just hanging out with the same core people you work with everyday in the corner. Everyone dressed up just enough to seem more formal. Wine and champagne were flowing freely, one of the higher ups got especially sloppy “so we didn’t have to feel like we couldn’t have a good time.” It was damn close to being the most forgettable event I’d ever attended.

My drinking buddies in the corner of the party were the two guys I worked with day-in and day-out. They had both been there for years without advancing much of anywhere, so rather than do their jobs well, they had made gossip and rumor-mongering around the company their strong suit. Searching the room, it was a challenge to find someone for whom they had not invented some blunt theory. Seeing them meekly shake hands and make polite conversation with people they had told me in no uncertain terms “keeps trying to siphon money out of the company” or “should have been fired years ago, but they’re afraid of a lawsuit” or “only hires attractive women because he’s desperately trying (and failing) to cheat on his wife,” brought forth a chuckle and an eye-roll.

Most people didn’t bother talking to us. I can’t blame them. Among the willing was Jessie, the kind of person whose desk you pass a dozen times in a week but she never misses a beat to smile and ask how you are. A somewhat higher up in the company, Jessie has a matronly quality to her along with a kind of confident charm despite probably being in her mid 30s. Most times I saw her, she had her dark hair tied up in a messy bun that when paired with her prominent dimples when she smiled could be described as nothing short of adorable despite her likely having a good six or seven years on me. She went out of her way at the party to say hello to us, remembering each of our names with a firm handshake.

Before the usual cycle of smalltalk could begin with Jessie she rushed to justify her outfit. Clearly embarrassed to be seen in it, she pointed out that her department agreed to an “Ugly Christmas Sweater” theme despite weeks of protest on her part. I broke eye contact to evaluate the damage. She wore a vibrant green and red striped sweater with candy canes and bells on it. It hung off her small frame loosely, the sleeves violently rolled-up; were they not, they’d likely roll past her wrists and dark painted nails. She fought to make it look stylish, she seems like the kind of person who could wear a flour sack and still look elegant.

Beneath the mammoth sweater she wore a skintight shiny black skirt spangled with a variety of gold zippers. Were it not for the distracting sweater, you could argue her skirt was much shorter and much tighter than what most would dare wear to a company function. Jessie wore it quite well all the same. Her outfit was rounded out with nylon stockings, some short heeled black boots, and large dangly gold snowflake earrings. Her lips matched her nails, sporting a dark red color that looked nearly black in the dim party lighting.

Greedily, my eyes lingered on her hips. The skirt was like a bear trap, locking my gaze painfully in place. I always knew she had a good figure, but never to the extent made loudly clear by the vinyl or leather-like substance painted on her hourglass shape. My gaze remained there for what felt like an eternity, filing the visual away in the deep recesses of my mind as “IMPORTANT, DO NOT LOSE,” before being yanked from the ether by her voice.

She asked if I was enjoying my first holiday party with the company, not oblivious to my gluttonous bit of ogling, to which I gave a stammering stock answer that I cannot for the life of me remember (much more important memories were being filed away after all). The next thing I remember is her smiling and walking to another group, her dimples accentuated by her makeup which sparkled ever-so-festively.

Something about her skirt made me grind my teeth, it felt sinister. Absentmindedly, my thoughts ventured to the spam folder, reminding me of the theory my coworkers had cobbled together about Jessie. I think the long and the short of it was that she divorced young and not-so-subtly slept around the office and beyond a fair amount. I never gave their idea the time of day. 90% of their theories were wrong and when paired with Jessie’s sugar-sweet presence felt like an elaborate joke. Something about that skirt had me reevaluating.

The party continued on without event, I repeatedly came close to leaving, preferring the thought of videogames and food at home, only to be brought back for “ten more minutes” by peer pressure. Piece by piece, my team wandered off, either exiting or finding a good conversation to jump into elsewhere; all the while, my eyes would search the floor for Jessie’s black heeled boots, before tracing my eyes up the thick black line at the rear of her stockings. Whether fueled by the booze, the horniness spun from being a couple months out of a long-term relationship, or my inner conspiracy theorist pushing thumbtacks to the case board of whether Jessie truly had a secret, aggressively sexual side, I couldn’t stop thinking about her.

The next thing I remember was being caught off-guard at the beverage table, Jessie coming up on my side, lamenting the wine selection. I’ll be blunt, as a man in my mid 20s that doesn’t have much in the way of expensive tastes, I know next to nothing about wine. Naturally, I didn’t allow this to keep me from complaining about it with Jessie, savoring her brash jokes brought on by her consumption of two or three “shitty” glasses of wine.

She insisted that the “good stuff” had to be around somewhere and I helped her search the area for anything to her liking. As we scoured the beverage area, she would playfully push me out of the way whenever she thought I was close to finding a bottle of something nice. This gradually evolved to flirtier heights, occasionally hip-checking me or slithering in front of me just as I was reaching for a new find. The latter led to a lip-bitingly tense instance of her ass being pushed firmly against my front, the skirt’s slippery material painting a vivid picture of just how firm her ass was as it danced along the outline of my cock. I nearly apologized despite her being the one that backed her ass up into me. She certainly didn’t apologize.

Our efforts were in vain as she didn’t seem to find what she was looking for, her last ditch effort was to reach behind the table to see if anything was stashed there. She tentatively bent over the table, her skirt riding dangerously high up her thighs, before pulling back and asking me to do it. She complained that what she was wearing was too short as my eyes took the excuse to look her over. She insisted she didn’t want to show her ass to the whole party trying to reach a bottle of wine, pinning “as much as I’m sure you all would enjoy it,” to the end of the sentence. I stammered, unsure of what to say and she simply shot back a wry smile and a giggle, her once-cute dimples now tinged with suggestion.

Rather than let it linger, I heaved an ice bucket full of beer to the side of the table and blindly groped around behind the table, finding only a couple more bottles of the stuff Jessie didn’t care for. She poured herself another glass of “shitty wine” and wandered off, thanking me for helping, pointing out how she appreciates someone that’s willing to get his hands dirty and that they were in short supply at the party.

I grabbed a beer before wandering off to a corner of the party alone, checking my phone and trying to chalk up my interpretation of what just happened as a rumor tainting an innocent interaction. I assumed she was probably just overly friendly, perfectly content in an outstandingly ordinary marriage or something of the like. Before that thought had much time to breathe, one of the company heads gave an utterly forgettable speech thanking us and transparently suggesting we all clear out. I shrugged and prepared to leave, not too proudly scanning the room to see if I could get one last lusty eyeful of Jessie for the road.

The north star that was the line on the back of her tights was nowhere to be seen, only for her to come crashing into my peripherals a split second later, starting whatever she had to say to me with “motherfucker!”

It seemed she had finally found a high-end bottle of wine in a side room where the higher-ups were hanging out and was now bemoaning that she didn’t have the time drink it. I joked that she should still smuggle it out and enjoy it, to which she made reference that she’d sober up before the Uber to her apartment was even done.

We continued the small talk as the lights came up and everyone fumbled to find their coats. Hypnotized by her now more visibly red lips in the fluorescent overhead lights, I was determined to keep them moving. I asked her where she lived if she had such a long ride ahead, which she answered before turning the question around on me. I lived in walking distance and answered as such thinking nothing of it. Her face lit up, merely asking if I had wine glasses before inviting herself over. My earlier suspicions took a triumphant victory lap in my head as I had fractions of a second to come to the reality that Jessie very well might want more than just a glass of wine.

That second fell on its face as she followed up her plan with “I’ll see if anyone else wants to join,” before thrusting the bottle into my hands and rushing over to the some of the other party goers. I found my coat and slipped it on as I cringed at the state of my apartment. It very much reflected my standing in the company: a tiny studio. I thought of how awkward it would be to have random coworkers there as I counted my blessings that I just did a thorough cleaning of the place in preparation of me leaving the area for break (I’m neurotic and like to come home to a clean place after a trip).

As was the theme of the night, these thoughts didn’t get the chance to mature before they were interrupted as Jessie found her way back to me. She informed me everyone else seemed burnt out and didn’t want to come, before putting back on that wry smile and offering that if “just the two of us would be weird, I understand if you don’t want to.”

Looking back, I’m not sure she truly asked anyone.

Jessie wandered off to the washroom to freshen up before we took off, leaving me grappling with how I enthusiastically accepted her offer and how if there was a time to get off this speeding train, it had long past.

I waited by the exit, wine in hand, as Jessie came back, her makeup not-so-coincidentally touched up, with thicker black mascara around her strikingly light colored eyes and a renewed deep wine color tight on her lips. The cold of the outdoors cut into us by the door, prompting her to scoop her arm around mine before commanding I lead the way. I could feel eyes on me from the other party-goers, perhaps they had a better idea of what was in-store for me than I did.

The ten minute walk to my apartment was filled primarily with conversation about the area as I desperately attempted to prepare her for the plainness of my apartment. She made light of it, reminding me of the Jessie I knew from work: sweet, warm, and easy to talk to. For a stretch it was quiet, both of us in our own heads, left only with the distinct clicking of her boots on the sidewalk, her arm still hooked around mine for warmth and stability. The closeness simultaneously felt right and made no sense at all. Sure, I had known Jessie for months now, but never holding a conversation for more than ten minutes. Now she was pulling herself close against my body, joining me at my apartment.

We finally reached the door to my building, prompting a sigh of relief from Jessie. As I forced my key into the lock, she took the opportunity to joke that were my apartment a longer walk she wouldn’t have made it in her shoes. I mentioned how it would’ve been a shame, losing out on the company and the wine; without missing a beat she shot back, “I would have just ordered us an Uber.”

Riding the elevator up to my floor I made an awkwardly delayed compliment on her shoes, to which she simply grinned and looked up at me knowingly. I felt thoroughly outmatched.

I swung the door open to my tiny apartment, gesturing to the only civilized furniture I had: a couch barely larger than a loveseat with a cheap coffee table placed in front. Jessie didn’t hesitate to make herself comfortable as I heard the hard impact of her boots landing on the floor behind me as I clamored around my cabinets for a corkscrew. Finding it much faster than I expected, I pinched two wine glasses in my free hand and turned back over to Jessie only to be instantly greeted with an errant sweater, thrown toward her discarded boots but instead colliding with my face.

I could hear her snicker from the couch, making some remark about her hatred for Ugly Sweater Parties. I shrugged the sweater off my head, and nearly needed a double-take to realize what Jessie was wearing. Through a haze of booze and disbelief I was somehow able to deduce that the skirt Jessie had been wearing under the sweater all night was no skirt, but rather a full dress.

Stopping dead in my tracks, some words clumsily fell out of my mouth about how I thought she was just wearing a skirt under the sweater. Relishing in my confusion, she mentioned how it was new and that she thought it was cute as if the dress was doing all the work and she didn’t have a killer body beneath it. She slumped back into the corner of the couch, spreading one arm along the back of it and crossing her legs. Somewhere in the mix I think she said the dress was “faux leather” and she had been searching for an occasion to wear it for a while.

I drank Jessie in as I set the glasses on the table and reached for the wine bottle. If I had thought the “skirt” was too short and too tight for an office party earlier, then this dress was clearly an HR violation. Just as tight as it clung to her hips, it strangled her torso, reaching up into two cups that struggled to contain her chest. Gold zippers climbed up and along her curves, placed in all of the right spaces to challenge you to pull them. I’ve heard the term “painted on” used to describe women’s jeans, but this felt like the next level. It felt like an intense dream I’d soon come crashing into consciousness from.

I unsheathed the corkscrew as she began talking about the holiday party. I struggled to find the words to properly compliment her dress and the moment perhaps had passed. She leaned over to the table where she had placed her purse and I again got a glimpse of the back of her dress: it was strapless, with a scandalous cut-out near her lower back that had me questioning how the thing even stayed on.

I plunged the screw deep into the cork. She mentioned something about wine, with me twisted around her finger like the corkscrew navigating toward the bottle. Channeling the tension of the moment, I violently plucked the cork from the bottle and picked up a glass, only for her to snatch the bottle from my hand. She gently placed the bottle on the back corner of the table, insisting it had to “breathe” first.

Dislodging the cork from the screw, Jessie shifted to the far edge of the couch and playfully patted the space to her side, beckoning me to take a seat while we waited. I obliged, my tall frame leaving next to no space between us. I replaced her arm on the back of the couch with mine, the dress contorting with her shape as she crossed her toned arms. I cracked a smile and admitted to her that I knew nothing about wine, “Oh, I know,” she responded.

Jessie uncrossed her legs, alternating to the other leg. My eyes shot down. The hem of her dress covered barely anything as I spotted a tattoo through her stockings high up on her thigh. She let my eyes linger on her perfectly shaped legs, before gracefully tugging the edge of her dress as if to cover up. The dress provided no give in its tightness, with only the zippers jingling in response to the tug. My eyes followed her arm back up to her chest, then crawled cautiously up to meet hers.

We locked eyes. She leaned back against the arm of the couch, assuring me that she knew a lot about wine because she loved it, her eyebrows shot up, “Do you know what I like even more than wine?”

It didn’t matter what she said, I was already halfway to her lips; as they met, her hands were halfway to my belt. Blindsided by her directness, I untangle my lips from hers, only for her to push forward. Halfway into my lap, I feel her bite my earlobe, holding it in her teeth as she wrestled with my belt. Her sensual breathing in my ear picks up as she gets closer and closer to her goal.

Instinctively, I reach out to keep her from falling, as she’s positioned with one knee next to my hips and the other leg extended to the carpet below. Immediately my grasp extends to her hips, her breathing heightening as my palm reaches her ass. My belt decimated by her desire, I feel Jessie make quick work of my button fly as I rear back and grab a cruel handful; her hands freezing at the reverberating sound of my hand on her tight dress and her breathing reaches primal levels of excitement

My right arm reaches around, scooping her other leg to the side of me as my left hand forced its way under her dress, fighting the tightness to explore her curves against the grit of her stockings. Unsure where to begin with each other, Jessie busies her fingers by stripping the buttons down the center of my shirt with unmatched urgency. Before she’s even halfway down, my fingers find their own target, bound beneath the taut nylon. My fingers roughly tease her warmth as tiny excited noises penetrate dark red lips. She rears her head back to brush her straight black hair from her face as my eyes survey my coworker straddling me.

I pull Jessie down on top of me, driven to feel her lips against mine again, but she pulls away, pivoting toward the coffee table and her purse. The zippers on her dress sing as she forces herself abruptly to her feet, battling to get her dress above her hips and her stockings out of the equation. My own clothes all but falling off at this point, I sit up to help pull her stockings down, each inch of her creamy thighs revealed is more than my heart can take.

I take over removing her stockings as they drop beneath the hem of her dress. She leans over the table, fishing through her purse, seemingly making an irresistible offer for me to grab her now mercifully revealed ass. She winces while my other hand sloppily tugs further on her stockings. I pull her lacy black underwear to the side as she finds whatever she was looking for and erects herself back to her feet.

She holds a wrapped condom between her teeth, freeing up both hands to shove me back against the couch, leaving no question about what she was here for. She finishes the job of removing her stockings and underwear with surgical precision and no sooner than she steps out of them, does she again straddle me, her hands tools of destruction as she makes quick work of my pants. I cast my shirt aside in cooperation as she nearly tears off my boxer briefs and helps herself to my cock.

One hand wraps around my shaft while the other grips the condom as she tears open the wrapper with her teeth, her earrings swinging in the aggression. I struggle out of my undershirt with her tempting presence directly above me. Our eyes make contact as she gently removes her hand from my dick, with the freed condom in the other. She raises her eyebrows once and I snap.

I wrap my arm around her back and swing her off me, throwing her on her back to her original spot on the couch. My forearms catch her dress tightly, while its fabric slides against the furniture’s. Dropping to the floor, I pull her legs toward me and recklessly push her dress up as far as the unforgiving material permits. My head immediately goes to the previously hidden tattoo on her thigh, using every ounce of willpower I have not to devour her right then.

Driven to tease her with my lips, I breath heavily between her legs, dropping light kisses on the inside of her thighs. Unwilling to play my game, I feel fingers at first delicately glide into my hair, before clutching it hard and pulling my head into her pussy. Wanting it as badly as her, I give her everything.

My tongue dances on her clit, wanting nothing more than to provide its greatest performance. Focus falters as I hear Jessie moan, demanding I carry on: her volume my greatest reward yet. Her grip tightens on my hair as I pour every mental faculty I have into her pleasure. Her hips buck as her grip feels as though it will take every last strand of my hair with it. I feel the hem of her dress on the bridge of my nose as nothing can get in the way of what’s building.

Tensing up and forcing me close, Jessie curses loudly in relief. Her hand quivering as it lets me go and we both catch our breath. I sit up on my knees, bracing myself on my thighs and stretching out my facial muscles as she lets out a more peaceful refrain, nearly kicking my nose as she crosses her leg back over.

Repeatedly sliding off the couch as she tries to sit up in her slippery dress, Jessie plucks the condom off the coffee table and marches over to my bed in the opposite corner of the room. I look over my shoulder as she throws herself onto an elbow and the spring mattress eagerly adjusts to her presence.

I give myself a moment to catch my breath with my back turned as I come back down to earth and take account of what’s happening. My mind races, thinking about everything it shouldn’t: my last relationship, what she’d think of what I’m doing, what work will be like now. I think of how much dirtier this is than anything I usually get up to. Whether that’s ok with me or not. How surreal it is. This takes place across all of 30 seconds, but it feels like an eternity. I wipe Jessie from my mouth, turn around, and am immediately plucked back into to the stratosphere.

Jessie sits herself up on the edge of my bed, leaning back on her hands, chest still heaving. A single eyebrow raise is all it takes to get me back to my feet.

Completely naked and harder than I’ve ever been in my life, I make my way across the room as coolly as I can. Her eyes shooting daggers at mine, I pull them away to allow them to feast on her presence. Now in nothing but her skintight black club dress and earrings, I can’t find even a fragment of a memory that makes sense for this to be my coworker. Even so, she was, and I wanted nothing more in the universe than her at that moment.

Lost in thought, I find myself standing directly in front of her. Reluctantly pulling my eyes up from her sinister cleavage, she looks up at me questionably from the bed, moving her eyes from mine to my cock (which I’ve walked right up to nearly her eye level), and then back to mine. The expression on her face seems to ask “really?” at my unintentionally blunt gesture. In the moment, the only thing that makes sense is to own it, so I take a half-step back and gesture to my dick with an open palm.

Obediently, and without missing a beat, Jessie hops down to her knees and lays the three most sensuous kisses imaginable along the base of my shaft, her eyelashes fluttering at the tail end of the third kiss. I groan out and curse louder than she did moments prior and my cock hasn’t even entered her mouth.

Slowly and cruelly, Jessie flicks the end of her tongue across the tip of my cock, relieving the precum that has already began to pool. I curse again, including her name. She pulls back, looks me in the eyes and puts a finger to her lips. Before I can even comprehend what’s happening, she plunges her mouth onto my cock.

I clench my teeth as I watch her head bob forward and back on my shaft, Jessie greedily taking most of it in her first few strokes. My mind nearly shuts down in the bliss of it. Granted I have had a relatively small amount of partners, but something about the way Jessie sucked on me felt completely unreal and never-before-experienced. Jessie’s tongue broke me as it made love to my dick.

Eyes rolling to the back of my head, I peer down at her in a state of euphoria. Immediately I’m greeted with a flash of eye contact, as if she had been watching me lose my mind this entire time but didn’t want me to know it. Her mouth so tightly wrapped around me, her dark red lips make a perfect circle.

She closes her eyes and returns to the task at hand as she begins twisting her tongue in ways that seemed beyond this plane. Taking in the sight of her lips and dimples that prominently appear as she pulls back pushes me to the edge. I want so badly to erupt in her mouth; I can’t even remember the last time I got head, let alone like this.

I can’t hold back my pleasure and groaned out her name, prompting her to pop her mouth from my cock and raise herself to her feet. Standing tall, she bites my earlobe and lets out a sultry whisper to the tune of, “You don’t get to make noise unless I do too.”

Her lips than collided with mine as her arm wrapped around the small of my back and pulled me onto the bed with her. Side-by-side our lips caressed each other, sharing each other’s flavor. While gentle for a few moments, it doesn’t take long before Jessie’s hand was on my cock, prompting my hand to work its way up her torso.

Pulling from her lips, I buried my face in her chest, kissing my way up her neck while I desperately try to liberate her chest from the dress. I barely succeed as my lips and tongue rush to meet her nipple. Meanwhile, I felt Jessie’s hand wrestling with my cock, before the familiar glide of a condom came over it. Immediately, I fumbled callously with her body, seeking a way to get the dress off. Pulling zippers haphazardly, it’s not long before Jessie forcefully brushes my hand aside and begins forcing the bottom of the dress up herself.

With her dress nearly up to her belly-button, I rolled myself on top of her. Before I can even dip my hips, Jessie has my cock firmly in her hand, urgently guiding it into her. For the first time, I’m finally in her, prompting a long, pleased moan from her. That’s all the encouragement I need as I begin pumping into her.

Jessie gets very vocal as I pick up my pace, unspooling filthy thoughts that I desperately wish I could remember word-for-word to the day. Our eyes wide and locked, daring the other to say something they can’t back up. I drill myself into her and immediately feel my limits as she pushes back into me. My bed frame and the zippers on her dress create a cacophony that I never wanted to hear end. As I realize I’m getting close to cumming, I pull out and bring myself back from the edge.

Jessie seizes this opportunity, to throw herself on top of me, straddling me and again guiding my cock into her. I grip her firmly by the hips and the next few minutes are the dirtiest of my life, each of us trying to outdo each other. She pins my arms down and rides me hard, only for me to push out, and pull her harshly onto my cock, both of us finally at full volume.

We reach our physical limits as I slide out of Jessie and she falls forward onto me. The fabric of her dress sticks close to both of our bodies like velcro, a zipper digging into my ribs, but too much pleasure to be bothered.

Placing her hands on my chest, she pushes herself up. Panting with lipstick smeared across her mouth and her hair wildly disheveled, she dives into my lips as if I needed mouth-to-mouth. For a time we do little more than let our lips become entangled, a hand occasionally getting curious and exploring the other’s body gently, like eating dinner after dessert. Her hand coyly traces its way back down to my dick as she peels her lips from mine and asks me if I expected my night to go like this. Before I have time to answer, she pulls herself back to her knees above me, the fabric of her dress pleading we remain connected as it now covers little more than the middle of her torso.

She pivots with her back to me. Exhausted I look up, and again I see her eyebrows raise curiously.

Acting as nearly one being at this point, I sit up in one fluid motion as she bends over on all-fours. I shove the dress up as well as I can, knowing now that it’s a losing battle with the leather sticking to her perspiring body. I push myself deep into her as she shoves her face into the blankets at the foot of my bed. I push deeper and deeper and I hear her muffled moans through the blankets. I hold her tight with one arm to ensure I don’t shove her off the bed in the visceral overdose of pleasure. I watch Jessie turn her head out of the blankets and demand that I cum with a rapidly increasing sense of urgency.

And I oblige. I unleash myself deep into her, moaning loudly in exhaustion and relief. As soon as I’m able, I pull out and collapse directly onto the bed. Jessie follows suit shortly after, uncertainly returning herself to her knees before I extend a hand and guide her backward into my arms. We collapse on the bed in silence for a time. Reality sets in as I feel like I just got through a tantric dream and realize I have actual consequences to live with.

I reach down to remove the thoroughly used condom and cast it to the floor next to the bed, unintentionally dripping some of its contents on Jessie’s dress. I begin to apologize as she waves away my words, wiping the cum from her dress with a free hand, joking that dresses like these are “resilient like that,” perhaps speaking from more specific experience. I feel Jessie get up and wander off toward the bathroom. I hear her make another comment about the state of her dress, followed by a bit of laughter.

Unsure of what to do next, I threw my underwear back on and poured a couple glasses of the wine. I watch her wander over to the couch, and ball up her tights and underwear around her hand, before tossing them haphazardly into her purse. The full wine glass catches her sight, and for a sliver of a moment, I think she appears disappointed.

She purposely seats herself down next to me and I watch her matching nails reach for the deep red glass of wine. She raises her glass to cheers me, and we both take a sip. In silence she smiles, clearly preloading the joke, and says to me “now doesn’t that taste better?”

We both laugh. Even with us both half-naked it’s easy to describe as Jessie cute again. Her warm charm finally again in front of her potent sexuality. I get up and offer her a glass of water which she waves away, instead plucking my discarded button-up shirt from the floor and throwing her arms through it. She downs the remainder of her wine glass as she ties the length of my shirt into a knot at her waist. She pronouncedly swallows it as she steps back into her boots near the door, tossing her coarse green jacket over the shirt, kissing me on the cheek and informing me that her Uber has arrived. I pull her in for a deep kiss, thick with curiosity. She breaks it, thanks me once more for the wine and exits my apartment.

I find my way back to the couch and finished the bottle of wine, her ugly Christmas sweater still a mound on my floor.

Returning to the office for the new year, nothing feels different. I continue to routinely pass her desk, and she continues to routinely greet me, as if nothing had ever happened. That was until a month or so ago, when I found my button-up shirt folded neatly on my desk, the wine cork slipped in the front pocket along with a simple “thank you” note. A tangible reminder of the reality of that night.

Source: reddit.com/r/gonewildstories/comments/az16hp/mf_ensnared_between_rumor_and_reality_at_the