The Christmas Exhibition (16 page)

             
“Top o' the mornin' to you!” shouted a boisterous voice, feigning a Southern Irish accent.

             
I turned, believing at first that we had been mistaken for another couple.

             
A tall, rotund fellow of my age or perhaps even younger was jumping between puddles, avoiding ice and slicing falling snowflakes away from his face with his hand. “Hello there!” he called.

             
Jill's hands left the inside of my coat. Her boots retreated from between my shoes.

             
My confusion sought comprehension. “Who...” My whisper fell to silence.

             
The big guy shook his jacket and swept snow from his shoulders as he ducked under the extended exterior roofing of the building for shelter. “I suppose you thought I wasn't going to bother showing up,” he said, twisting a grimace into a smile aimed at Jill. His eyes fell instinctively to her legs.

             
I wondered if I was going to have to introduce myself.

             
“This,” began Jill, the back of her hand grazing my chest, “is-”

             
“Matt,” he interrupted, and offered his hand.

             
“Hello,” I replied, impressed and yet dubious as to how he knew my name when everybody else hadn't a clue.

             
His handshake was firm. Certain. Confident. “I'm Sean.”

             
I felt the colour drain from my skin. His demeanour was so different from how she had described him. He
was
overweight and far from good-looking, but it was his stature which first threatened my composure. He towered over us both. He looked down upon us. He smiled down. He slithered intimately and invisibly between us, his desire for Jill obvious and her vulnerability to his vulture-like tendencies opaque. His shoulders were large, his arms wide and his incessant gesturing as he spoke frighteningly insincere.

             
“I've heard about you,” he added, flashing teeth which boasted a financially secure silver spoon.

             
How? When? From Jill? Or by phone from one of the labourers? Or one of the girls? How was it Sean was the only person in the building other than Jill who fostered any foreknowledge of my existence? “It's good to meet you, Sean,” I said.

             
Jill was staring at him, with neither complaint nor contempt.

             
He was so overtly aware of her attention. That he thrived upon it. He looked at me as if to suggest he knew that I knew what had happened between them. That he was rubbing it in my face. That he was secretly saying he could have my girlfriend any time he wanted.

             
Jill was nibbling her lower lip.

             
“How is the party?” Sean asked, pulling a cigarette from his inside pocket.

             
Jill leaned forward, holding a lighter to his tip.

             
Sean's lips curled. So smug. So delighted. So playing with her every conceivable intention. “Thank you, Jill.”

             
“It's okay,” I said finally, when it was apparent Jill was too lost in her attention to fathom a sentence.

             
“Fecking shite then,” he said, laughing.

             
It was infectious, rousing Jill from her silence. I traced her vision from her eyes to his mouth. She was staring at his mouth. She wanted to kiss him. I looked back at her. Her eyes had shifted. Down. I followed. Down. To his crotch. I glanced to her once more. Jill's tongue was rounding her upper lip. My girlfriend was caught in a world of desire, desperate to fuck the brains out of this other guy.

             
“The music isn't really my thing, Sean,” I said. “I'm more of a heavy rock person.”

             
“Me too, Matt.” His eyes were looking past me, down to Jill. Down to her cleavage. And down her torso. To her skirt. His X-ray imagination rumbled his pupils, roaming her insides.

             
I took a deep inhalation of smoke, held my breath as I seethed, then released it through my nostrils.

             
Jill's left hand found my right, entwining. “Can I have another drag please, baby?”

             
Sean popped open his packet in one swift motion. “Help yourself, Jill.”

             
She shook her head, and took my cigarette from my mouth. “No thanks, Sean, honestly, I just want another drag. I'm not a big smoker.”

             
“Just when you drink,” he said, anchoring my hurt in disgust.

             
Something glinted in Jill's eyes.

             
He watched her.

             
She watched him.

             
Were they daring each other to go further?

             
A window from the office was opened above us. The music was immediately louder.

             
“It must be getting warm up there,” Sean said, his eyes circling her breasts.

             
I thought of her job. I focused on her pay. What would happen if I punched out the boss' son?

             
Jill tossed away the end of the cigarette. “Yes,” she replied. “
Very
warm.”

             
What was I missing between them?

             
Sean sucked deeply on his cigarette. “Is my old man up there?”

             
“No.” Jill moved one boot apart from the other, extending the gap between her legs. “He took one glance at the guys coming in from the pub after lunch and told Sharon she was in charge.”

             
Sean laughed.

             
Jill laughed.

             
What on earth had happened in the seven days between the Christmas dinner and the staff party? There was no jealousy on Sean's part. No awkwardness between them. No inkling of the word
slut
on his tongue.

             
“Shall we go upstairs?” Sean suggested, flicking his cigarette across the tarmac into a puddle.

             
“After you,” I said, reaching for the door and opening it for him. I was determined to deny him the opportunity to walk behind Jill as she climbed the steps. Where he would no doubt hang behind to seize a glimpse up her miniskirt.

             
“After me it is,” he replied, rolling his tongue around each syllable. There was implication to his insistence. A clue. A brag. A boast.

             
Jill pulled at my hand as I followed, turning me around. Her mouth was on mine as the door closed behind Sean. She muffled my protests in lust, longing to delve her tongue deeper. My hands found her waist, her hips and her beautiful, curvaceous ass clung in her tight miniskirt.

             
I broke the kiss, flicked my eyes inside to the reception and spied Sean stepping onto the first of the steps. “What's going on?” I demanded.

             
“I want your fingers inside me, baby.”

             
I was perplexed by her diversion. “No, sweetheart, I mean with you and Sean.”

             
“What?” she asked.

             
“The sexual tension between you two is off the chart. It's... It's not what I expected... There's definitely a chemistry there... I'm worried about it.”

             
Jill squeezed my cock through my trousers. “You're my chemistry, baby. Trust me.”

             
I shook my head. “I saw the way you looked at him, Jill.”

             
Her mascara was blurred beautifully and flawlessly around her eyes. “I'm playing with him-”

             
“You're playing with fire, Jill.”

             
The cold air clasped at her throat, shivered her silence and flung her body forwards into my arms once more. “You...” She was kissing my neck. “Can trust...” Nibbling my throat. “Me.” Mauling my Adam's apple. “I know what I'm doing.”

             
“Your job could be on the line, Jill. You shouldn't underestimate the power he has.”

             
Her eyes lit up at the word power.

             
I imagined her pussy pulsating at the thought. Moistness coasting the edges of her lips. Matting her pubic hair together. Pulling every muscle towards the centre of her sex.

             
There was rambunctious laughter from the window above. Sean had entered. Someone had given the crowd something to laugh about. My paranoia insisted it was at my expense.

             
“It won't get out of hand, baby. I'm just having a bit of fun. I
need
to establish who's really in control between me and him.”

             
My eyebrows practically crisscrossed. “What the fuck is going on here, Jill? How come he knew about me? I thought you hadn't told anyone.”

             
“Oh, baby, I had to tell Sean.”

             
“Why?”

             
“So the fucker could know I'm off-limits.”

             
I felt the unfamiliar surge of victory. Cobwebs of irrationality and deceit were blown away in an instant. Jill had warned Sean off. At some stage. Whether it was on the previous weekend or in the week that had followed. She had given him the clearest indication that she would not take things further with him. She had told him she had a boyfriend.

             
“But I do feel he got the upper hand on me last week,” she conceded, drawing her legs together and motioning towards the door. “I want to even the score, Matt.”

             
“You... Do?”

             
“And you're going to make that happen.”

7

The alcohol flowed in the office. The laughter roared. Harmless wolf-whistles to the women evolved into boisterous dares for them to take to a makeshift dance floor in the middle of the room, where desks had been moved aside. Nici and Tracey were the first to accept, dancing innocently for their amusement. Sharon was tapping her feet along, holding her hands on her hips and occasionally swaying her buttocks. Few eyes noticed. The rest were roaming Jill's incredible figure, hugged around the tight belt at her waist and hovering at the top of her naked thighs where her miniskirt finally started and robbed their vision of more.

             
Her hand clenched mine as she downed yet another cup of white wine.

             
“Go on, Jill, get up there and show them how it's done,” shouted Billy.

             
There were claps and cheers.

             
Jim and George smiled. Crudely. Cunning.

             
My heart pounded as I swigged from another tin of
Harp
.

             
Sean worked his way around the crowd, speaking quietly to individuals or pairs.

             
“Fuck it,” Sharon said, and pulled the apprentice onto the dance floor as
Kylie Minogue's Can't Get You Out of My Head
pumped out of the stereo.

             
Shouts of “Dark horse!” and “Go on, son!” echoed across the room.

             
Jill poured more wine into her polystyrene cup.

             
Sean brushed past and crossed the dance floor. He stopped behind Nici, unbeknownst to her, and mocked a provocative dance behind her, rotating his hips in unison with her groin. The labourers laughed. Tracey rolled her eyes and Nici was a split-second from realisation when Sean cut his routine short and walked to another workman at the other side of the room.

             
“Do you fancy heading home soon?” I said to Jill.

             
Her breasts heaved as she sighed. “Aw, baby, can we not stay longer?”

             
I nodded. “Anything you want, Jill.”

             
She smiled. “
Any
thing?” Her eyes returned to the dance floor.

             
I followed her stare. Was I paranoid or perceptive? She was looking in the direction of Sharon and the young guy. However, as they twirled out of her sight, her head remained fixed. Her eyes looking ahead. My suspicions clashed maliciously in my mind. Jill was watching her boss' son. Her mouth motioning and opening, allowing her tongue to circumnavigate her lips. Sean caught her gaze, nodded without his prior self-assurance and returned his attention to the workman. He persistently looked over, checking that she was still watching, and repeatedly changed his stance, fixing his suit and rustling his trousers. Whatever she was playing at, Jill had him rumpled.