#colleagues

@stp-thevoices

The hotel room smelled like stale air conditioning and the faint ghost of someone else’s cigarette. I’d loosened my tie the moment the door clicked shut, kicked off my shoes, and now I sat on the edge of the bed, still in my rumpled dress shirt, staring at the glow of my laptop screen without really seeing it. Two days of meetings. Two more to go.

The wall clock read 11:47. I should have been asleep.

Instead, I heard it. A sound so faint I almost convinced myself I’d imagined it. A soft, breathy oh that drifted through the hotel’s thin walls, just loud enough to raise the hair on my arms.

I muted the laptop. Held my breath.

There it was again. A low, prolonged moan, muffled but unmistakable. Coming from the room next door.

The hotel was one of those curved towers, built around a central atrium with floor-to-ceiling windows. My room faced inward, and from the armchair by the window, I had a side-angle view of the balcony next door. The sliding glass door of the neighboring room was cracked open an inch, thin curtains doing nothing to hide the warm lamplight spilling out.

A shadow moved across the glass.

I tell myself I should have looked away. I didn’t.

I slid off the bed and lowered myself into the armchair, slow and quiet, my eyes fixed on that sliver of lit room. The angle was partial. I could see the side profile of a woman’s body in silhouette, her back arched, one arm braced against the glass door itself. She was standing, facing partially toward me, wearing nothing but a loose white tank top that rode up her hips.

Her head tilted back. Her dark hair spilled over her shoulders.

And then she turned, just slightly, catching the light, and my stomach dropped.

Maya.

My colleague. The one woman on this business trip I’d spent the last two days avoiding eye contact with, because every time she smiled at me across the conference table, I forgot how to speak in full sentences. She wore sunglasses in the office like she was shielding from a headache. She kept to herself at dinners, always the first to leave.

She was also, apparently, very, very alone right now.

Maya pushed off the glass door and took a step back into the room. The curtain swayed. I could see her more fully now. The tank top was bunched beneath her breasts, and below it, nothing. Her skin was pale, almost luminous in the low light, and her thighs were slick, not with water, but with something else.

She gripped the edge of the nightstand with one hand. The other was between her legs.

I watched, frozen, as her hips began to grind against her own palm. She was touching herself through the fabric of her underwear, or maybe without any underwear at all. I couldn’t tell. All I could see was the shift of her hips, the way her free hand moved up and cupped her breast, kneading through the thin cotton.

A soft, desperate sound escaped her lips. It was the sound of someone who thought they were alone.

My hand moved to my lap before I made a conscious decision. My dress pants were already tight. Through the fabric, I cupped myself, feeling my own heat, my own pulse. I was fully hard just from watching her.

I didn’t unzip yet. Just held myself, breathing slowly, as Maya began to move faster.

She turned again, facing the balcony door directly, and my breath caught in my throat. Her eyes were closed. Her mouth was open, a dark, silent o. She’d pulled the tank top up over her breasts entirely now, and they swayed with the rhythm of her hips. I could see everything. The lines of her ribs. The curve of her stomach.

And then she crouched down, out of sight.

I leaned forward in my armchair, pressing my face against the window. The angle shifted, and I caught a glimpse of her kneeling on the floor, reaching under the bed. My heart hammered. When she rose back up, she held a small, curved object in her hand. A vibrator. The kind that looked innocuous but definitely wasn’t.

Maya settled onto the bed with her back against the headboard, facing the window now, her legs spread wide. She was wearing nothing at all anymore. The lamp behind her threw her body into sharp relief. She held the vibrator in one hand and dangled it in front of her like she was debating what to do first.

I watched her bring it to her lips. She kissed it. Lightly, almost shyly.

Then she pressed it to her chest, dragging it down the pale valley between her breasts, and let out another one of those aching moans.

My fingers finally made the decision for me. I undid my belt. Unzipped my fly. The cool air on my hard cock made me shiver, and I wrapped a hand around the shaft, working slowly, my eyes locked on the scene across the small divide.

Maya switched on the vibrator. The buzz was faint but clear, a high-pitched insect-like hum through the glass. She held it at the top of her thigh, teasing herself, her hips lifting off the bed to meet it.

God, she was slow. Torturously so. She’d drag it down, then back up, circling but never pressing. Her thighs trembled. Her free hand gripped the sheets so hard I could see the fabric bunching.

I squeezed myself, faster, trying to match her pace. My own breath came in soft pants against the window. My reflection ghosted over her body, and I imagined she could see me, that her closed eyes might flick open at any moment and catch me here in the dark, stroking myself to the sight of her.

The thought made me groan low in my throat.

Maya’s movements changed. She pressed the vibrator flat against herself, and the sound shifted, deeper, wetter. Her back arched off the bed. Her mouth dropped open, and a guttural sound, something beyond a moan, escaped her.

The vibrator moved faster. Her hips rose to meet it. Her head was thrown back, and I could see the muscles in her neck straining, the tendons in her hands taut as she gripped herself.

I was close. I tightened my fist, slowing my rhythm, trying to make it last, trying to drink in every detail. The way her thighs shook. The way her toes curled against the sheets. The way her lips formed silent words, things I couldn’t hear, but I knew she was saying yes, yes, oh god, yes.

She brought her other hand between her legs and spread herself open, wide, and I let out a strangled breath against the glass. She was glistening. Completely soaked. The vibrator slid easily against her, slick with her arousal, and she began to circle herself faster, harder, her breathing turning ragged.

I could feel my own body responding, trembling with the effort of holding back. My hand moved in a blur. I wanted to watch her finish. I wanted to see the moment her body came apart.

And then she looked at the window.

Not through it. At it. Her eyes opened, dazed and glassy, and they rested somewhere beyond the glass, somewhere in the dark reflected back at her. For one electric second, I thought she’d seen me.

She hadn’t. But she was staring at her own reflection now, and something shifted in her rhythm. She angled her body so she could watch her own hand move, watch the vibrator slide against her. She was putting on a performance. For herself.

Her lips parted, and a word slipped out ,garbled, inaudible through the glass. I read her lips. Please.

My hand was slick on my own shaft. The pressure was building in my core like a hot coal, and I pressed my forehead against the cool glass, my eyes refusing to blink, refusing to miss a second.

Maya’s whole body began to tense. I could see the base of her spine lifting off the bed, her heels digging into the mattress, her shoulders drawing in. Her mouth went wide and silent. She held her breath for ten agonizing seconds.

The glass muffled her scream. Her head snapped back, her hands flew to her thighs, and that scream turned into a sharp, shuddering sob as her body convulsed. I watched the vibrator slip from her grip, watched it buzz uselessly on the mattress beside her as her hips continued to buck with the aftershocks.

The sight of it undid me.

My own climax tore through me, radiating outward in a white-hot pulse that curled my spine forward and wrenched a groan from deep in my chest. I came into my hand, thick and fast, my vision blurring at the edges while I watched her collapse back onto the bed, breathless, radiant.

Silence. Just my ragged breathing and the soft hum of the hotel air conditioner.

Maya lay still for a long while. Then, slowly, she pushed herself up on her elbows. She looked around the room, dazed, and then, for the first time, her gaze drifted directly toward her own balcony door.

Not at her reflection this time.

Past it.

At the sliver of my lit window.

I froze. My hand was still wrapped around my cock, my panting breath fogging the glass. Our eyes met across the dark, or would have, if the angle had allowed. Her balcony door had been cracked open this whole time. Mine hadn’t. The curtains between us parted just slightly.

She blinked. Squinted.

My heart stopped.

And then I watched Maya’s lips curve into the faintest hint of a smile. She stood up, naked, unhurried, and walked toward the sliding door. I thought she would close it. Push the curtains shut. End the night.

She didn’t.

She slid the door fully open, stepped out onto the balcony in the cool night air, and turned to face me directly. The moon lit her body silver. Her chest rose and fell with slow, deliberate breaths. And she raised one damp finger, still glistening from herself, and pressed it to her lips.

A kiss blown across the dark.

Hey!

Behind him is Witch, freshly awoken and brandishing her new blade at the intruder.

-@stp-minimum-wage-prisoner

She leans on the counter, tail flicking, staying just out of lunge range.

You! This establishment provides food, to my understanding?

-@stp-small-tower

Yes it—

Her eyes don’t find anyone. There isn’t anyone near her. Then down…down…down…

She gasps.

...I need cash.

-@askstpprisoner

She crosses her arms, eyes darting from the woman to the possums to the potential other her in the room with them.

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