Between us there was only a quarter-inch wall of foamcore, but Max and I weren't really close in any other way.
He had slender fingers and a sharp jaw, these were things I had noticed about him so far. I also knew he was in a relationship because I'd heard him on the phone talking with someone about branzino, skin contact wine, and mothers. Our desks looked out at the whole of Central Park from a height that made the park seem like a bathtub filled with bright green foam. The windows of the office were floor-to-ceiling, so that if you pressed your forehead up against the cold hard pane, you could simulate the feeling of falling, you could imagine the exhilaration of doing something crazy like that. On a slow afternoon, I'd heard the little thunk of his head hitting the window and resting there, thinking, the shift of his weight in his tailored grey suit pants. An hour later, I did the same thing, releasing my tight ponytail down to my shoulders, and then flouncing it around, up and down, as if the sticky New York spring air was rushing past me, wondering if he was listening too.
Max and I had worked in this office together for a few months. It was a good job, and as with most good jobs, it was also a boring job. Everyone in our quiet methodical office would stretch out their tasks for as long as possible, and then peak at the clock, sad to see that only 20 minutes had passed. So I cherished days with a vivid sight or sound like the last coke in the desert. Just one strong sensory experience was enough to jolt me back to life. And, likely unbeknownst to Max, he made the most exquisite sounds I had ever heard. Soft curses, pensive hmms, little covered yawns, full body stretching groans, unselfconscious grunts. They were varied, they were strange, and they got me incredibly wound up. I'd recorded full workdays' worth of Max's sounds on my phone, listening to them on the subway back home with my noise-cancelling headphones so no one else would ever know.
At the time, I was in a relationship with a person who mostly seemed interested in having conversations with himself. There was no topic that wouldn't ultimately come back to something that he'd hated, or loved, and when he'd finished telling me, there was no return volley, and so I'd started to feel like a ghost. To revive my spirits and to remind me that I was, in fact, still very much flesh and blood, I'd started to enjoy longer showers. It's a well known fact to all people with relationship troubles that the shower is a gift, and I began to maximize our mobile showerhead for all of its potential pleasurable uses. I'd fill up the bathroom with hot steam, let the city and my boyfriend disappear and just come as many times as I possibly could before the length of the shower became too implausible. And, when I was in the shower feeling the high pressure streams of water teasing my clit, I'd start to think about Max. Max's full lips, Max's mouth full of branzino, Max's long fingers typing on the same exact type of keyboard I use everyday with my fingers, Max's jaw unclenching.
***
One morning, I was in the office kitchen, in the hours just after dawn before the office filled with bright sunshine and was still dusky. The swivel chairs sat still like good children at church, the air was full of extra oxygen without people to breathe it all up. I usually got to the office early, because I enjoyed feeling my body wake up and thinking abstractly about whatever I wanted before the clock struck 9am and all the nuts and bolts of the day needed to be hammered into place.
My first stop was the bathroom, where I sat in the stall with my headphones on. I flipped through the various bits of entertainment and inadvertently came upon Max's audio I'd covertly recorded. The umms, stretching noises, yawning. The fact that there was no way he'd been aware of being recorded. The fact that his little throat was making these gnawing sounds where I could see his jaw stretching in response, neck straining and flexing, maybe his hands massaging the tender parts of his cheeks. Why was his jaw so sore? My fingers were dipping inside of my pussy, asking this same question. What would his long fingers be doing to me, how many of them would fit inside...? I was rubbing my clit, biting my freshly-showered arm to keep from moaning too much, I was dizzy and forgetting where I was, it was just me and the sounds of Max stretching that beautiful jaw...
I emerged from the bathroom, put back together. The office was empty and dark, as my morning coffee percolated to completion. In the kitchen, we have French milled soap on a rolling stick thing, and so to use it, you have to squeeze your hand around it and roll it around until you have enough foam. Squeezing the last drop of foam out of the soap never failed to keep me desperately horny, and this time was no exception, especially because of where my hands had just been. I stood there, stroking the soap and pretending it was Max, simulating his quiet stretching noises as I did it, feeling my aching clit going crazy.
I finished washing my hands, and I was pouring the rest of the carton of half-and-half into my coffee cup, feeling the cool breeze of the open refrigerator on my stomach, when I heard a male voice.
"Can I have the cream when you're done?"
