Abigail has been to Pascal's mid-terrace house on two occasions already.The second time he had left the back door unlocked and she slipped inside. On his laptop she discovered evidence of the webcam from an order receipt in his emails, as well as a short sequence copied to the hard drive of a woman struggling to open a locker. Knowing where he worked, it wasn't hard to work out where the webcam was.
Pascal does not know who she is, she is fairly certain, although there was a close call during the interview. Her baseball cap was hanging on her office door throughout the meeting she contrived on the basis of a minor discrepancy with his tax status. She suspects her line manager, Keith, knows something is amiss, but has nothing concrete that would land Abigail in trouble.
She watches through a gap in the curtains as Pascal pleasures himself at his desk. He is watching the footage. She is simultaneously repulsed and aroused by this new revelation; at home she has asked her boyfriend to wear the mask during sex, so far he has refused. The mask is in her pocket, right now. She grips it tightly through the lining of her coat.
Pascal has finished and closes the laptop, getting up from the desk. With a start, she ducks back against the wall, heart suddenly thumping hard in her chest. She hears his heavy footfalls upstairs and then shortly afterwards the shower can be heard. Abigail slips away down the yard, pausing to scrawl a crude image on the back yard gate. Pascal is singing something in French, the sound abstracted by bathroom echoes. Then she steps as casually as she can manage into the alley and walks back to the main road where her car is parked.
It is a pool car from the office, booked out against a mundane errand she has already accomplished. The interior smells alien, the surfaces stained with the patina of other hands. Once she drove to head office in this car wearing no underwear, skirt hitched, the feel of the coarse artificial fabric against her bottom an illicit, private thrill. Not today; she is dressed in slacks and a blue top beneath a coat that is too warm for the weather, within which she can carry the mask undetected.
An hour later she walks into the office to find manager Keith waiting for her with a carefully neutral speech about good work practice. The main office is empty apart from Keith and Ray, who is over in the corner studiously playing Spider Solitaire and making desk monsters out of bulldog clips.
She heads for her own office and removes her coat, hanging it on the door, checking the mask remains concealed. Keith has followed her in, still going on about best practice and team briefings and following codes of conduct. She is just about to politely tell him to fuck off when he stops and sits down.
'Carol left me this morning.' he says quietly.
They sit looking at each other in silence. After a moment, she gets up and closes the window blinds, then goes to the office door. She can see Ray in the far corner watching a wildlife documentary about mountain lions. He has earphones in. She closes her office door and locks it. She slips off her top revealing an elaborate cream silk bra with black lace trim her boyfriend bought her last valentines day. Then she reaches into the coat hanging on the back of the door.
'Abigail?' says Keith, his big face a mixture of shock, arousal and confusion. He starts to get up but she stops him.
'Shhhhh.'she holds out the gorilla mask.
'Put this on.'
(Pascal does not know who she is, she is fairly certain, although there was a close call during the interview. Her baseball cap was hanging on her office door throughout the meeting she contrived on the basis of a minor discrepancy with his tax status. She suspects her line manager, Keith, knows something is amiss, but has nothing concrete that would land Abigail in trouble.
She watches through a gap in the curtains as Pascal pleasures himself at his desk. He is watching the footage. She is simultaneously repulsed and aroused by this new revelation; at home she has asked her boyfriend to wear the mask during sex, so far he has refused. The mask is in her pocket, right now. She grips it tightly through the lining of her coat.
Pascal has finished and closes the laptop, getting up from the desk. With a start, she ducks back against the wall, heart suddenly thumping hard in her chest. She hears his heavy footfalls upstairs and then shortly afterwards the shower can be heard. Abigail slips away down the yard, pausing to scrawl a crude image on the back yard gate. Pascal is singing something in French, the sound abstracted by bathroom echoes. Then she steps as casually as she can manage into the alley and walks back to the main road where her car is parked.
It is a pool car from the office, booked out against a mundane errand she has already accomplished. The interior smells alien, the surfaces stained with the patina of other hands. Once she drove to head office in this car wearing no underwear, skirt hitched, the feel of the coarse artificial fabric against her bottom an illicit, private thrill. Not today; she is dressed in slacks and a blue top beneath a coat that is too warm for the weather, within which she can carry the mask undetected.
An hour later she walks into the office to find manager Keith waiting for her with a carefully neutral speech about good work practice. The main office is empty apart from Keith and Ray, who is over in the corner studiously playing Spider Solitaire and making desk monsters out of bulldog clips.
She heads for her own office and removes her coat, hanging it on the door, checking the mask remains concealed. Keith has followed her in, still going on about best practice and team briefings and following codes of conduct. She is just about to politely tell him to fuck off when he stops and sits down.
'Carol left me this morning.' he says quietly.
They sit looking at each other in silence. After a moment, she gets up and closes the window blinds, then goes to the office door. She can see Ray in the far corner watching a wildlife documentary about mountain lions. He has earphones in. She closes her office door and locks it. She slips off her top revealing an elaborate cream silk bra with black lace trim her boyfriend bought her last valentines day. Then she reaches into the coat hanging on the back of the door.
'Abigail?' says Keith, his big face a mixture of shock, arousal and confusion. He starts to get up but she stops him.
'Shhhhh.'she holds out the gorilla mask.
'Put this on.'
Smallbrainfield,
Tue 6 Mar 2012, 15:41,
archived)
Increasingly complexI can't help reading it in the voice of a narrator in a film noir
(
Wasp Box like a nervous random stranger at a glory hole,
Tue 6 Mar 2012, 16:43,
archived)
