I point out, ‘the problem wasn’t your…it wasn’t you. It was Amber.’
‘Ah,’ he says. ‘She didn’t like the fact that looking at Amber gave him a hard on.’
‘Not quite.’ I hesitate then, but if I’ve learned anything today it’s that Tom Hunt is pretty open-minded when it comes to sex. And by pretty open-minded, I mean has absolutely no shame and quite possibly no limits. I wish I had no limits. ‘I think her exact words were “god, I’d like to suck on her tits”.’ My ears go all buzzy after I say those words out loud. ‘God.’ I cover my face with my hands. ‘I can’t believe I just said that.’
There’s a moment of something then, something silent and hot and scary. He doesn’t look at me and I don’t look at him, but I’m so aware of him that it’s almost like he’s touching me all over. My skin is tight and I’ve never been more aware of my nipples. ‘Anyway,’ I say, stretching the word out as long as I can, ‘I’ve got to get home, and I’m sure you’ve got numbers to crunch. Calculators to dust. Stuff to do.’
He’s still looking at me. I can feel it. ‘Yeah,’ he says, after what seems like forever. ‘Stuff. Why do you think it would ruin everything?’
‘What?’
‘Why do you think it would ruin everything if people knew?’
‘Because…because they’ll think it’s inappropriate. They won’t want me to take their normal photos. They’ll think I’m dirty and messed up.’
‘I see,’ he says. ‘Can I see the pictures?’
‘What pictures?’ I ask, like I don’t know. Like my brain hasn’t been hopping between Tom Hunt sat six inches away, all big and warm and fully clothed, and Tom Hunt in my camera, all naked and hard and coming.
‘Be serious.’ He gets to his feet, pokes one of the overhead lights with the tip of his finger. ‘You know exactly which pictures I mean.’
‘Why do you want to see them, anyway?’ I’m stalling and I know it. The idea of the two of us looking at those pictures is too intimate. Too weird. Too much. But I’m not outright refusing. I don’t seem to be able to.
‘Curious, I guess. So come on. Let’s see them.’
‘You know what they say about curiosity.’ I push myself up from the sofa. Still stalling. Still thinking about him naked and hard and coming. It’s all strange and wrong. He is all strange and wrong. Clearly I am too, because my mind has started to veer off in a whole new direction, one which involves me and Tom Hunt looking at those pictures and then having wild, banging sex on my velvet sofa.
Tom Hunt would let me take pictures of him pleasuring himself. He’d do it without batting an eye. He’d probably like it.
‘Yeah,’ he says, flashing me a grin. ‘If men weren’t curious, women would be bored. Show me the bloody pictures already.’
Curiosity is crawling all over me now, making me hot and sweaty, like one of those viruses that comes on from nowhere and turns you into a wreck. Now I want to see the pictures, too. More than that, I really really want to be in the room with Tom Hunt when he looks at them. ‘Fine,’ I say. ‘Have it your way.’
I try to pretend that I’m not breathing a bit too fast as I turn on the screen and hook up my camera, then take the memory card out of my pocket and slot it in. I press a couple of buttons. The screen flicks from blue to black and white.
‘Do you want me to set it to slideshow?’ The words come out a little breathy, a little strange.
‘Sounds good,’ he says, so I scroll though the menu on the little screen on the back of the camera and set it up, then I take up position behind the sofa. Tom is still sat on the arm. We get ten seconds to look at each one before the next one appears. Ten long, luscious seconds. By the third picture, I’m throbbing. By the fifth, I’m wet and aching. I rub a hand over the back of my neck, though that’s not really where I want to rub.
Tom is hunched over, rocking slightly forward every time the picture changes. His big shoulders are rigid with tension. The slideshow ends, and I can hardly breathe.
‘Got any more?’ he asks, his gaze fixed firmly on the screen. His chest heaves.
‘Of you and Amber? No. That’s it.’
‘No.’ He hesitates, then sort of coughs. ‘Of anyone.’
I shouldn’t do this. I mustn’t. I should say things about client confidentiality, blah blah blah, and send him on his way. ‘Uh, yes,’ I fluster. I sort of stagger towards the door, where I left my bag, my legs wobbly. I pull out my laptop, and then collapse on the sofa with it. His face is flushed, in total contrast to his neat haircut, but I’m beginning to understand that some things are real. And some things are just the mask he wears so he can sit in his office and tut over bad maths.
I open the laptop, turn it on. We get a dozen folders to look at. Each one is a different colour. Colours are much easier to work than numbers, or letters. They don’t somersault all over the page.
Tom slides down next to me on the sofa. ‘You colour-code them?’
I sort of nod, and my throat makes a tight, hoarse noise.
‘Interesting,’ he says, and then points to one of them. ‘Show me these.’ The red folder. My hand shakes as I click on it. He’s got no idea what’s in here, but I do. And I’m about to show it to my accountant. MY ACCOUNTANT. I don’t need to hold my breath, because I can’t breathe anyway. My hand is shaking so much that I keep misclicking on the icon. ‘Stupid laptop,’ I mutter, as I go in for another attempt. This time, Tom bats my hand away and does it himself.
An image pops up on the screen. We have black and white, we have lingerie, we have tasteful lighting and we have the very velvet sofa that the two of us are sat on. We also have a woman leaning over the arm, dark hair cascading forwards and obscuring her face, as her husband does her in the arse.
‘Oh’ Tom says. That’s it. Just ‘oh’. He shifts a little in his seat. We both sit there and stare at the picture, and I wonder what on earth happens now, because I’m so hot and so tense and so turned on that I think I might faint.
‘Do you want to see the rest?’ I blurt out.
‘Yes,’ he says, and there’s something very definite about his tone. It’s the same one he uses when he’s going through my record books and asking me if that’s a 5 or a 3. It’s familiar, and it makes me just brave enough to say what I say next.
‘I didn’t know,’ I continue, as I awkwardly try and set the thing going.
‘Know what?’
‘That you’re…that you’re a bit of a pervert.’
His jaw goes tight, and I know I’ve gone too far. ‘I could say the same thing about you,’ he points out. ‘I’ve been doing your accounts for the past three years and I had no idea you did this sort of thing.’ One big hand gestures at the screen, as we flick on to the next shot. A close-up. The guy has pulled his cock almost all the way out. A whimper slips out of me as I look at it.
‘Please don’t tell anyone,’
