Gum

It was at least two sticks' worth. Or two tabs. A good glob, at any
rate.

The meeting was seconds away from closing. We were standing or moving
to stand, caught in a right angle with heads closer to the table than
at any other point. Papers were shuffled, pen tops capped, glasses and
cups retrieved from where they were left to rest. Keith was still
talking, but the business of the morning was concluded - it was the
jest now. The period of jest used to signify that Keith was in fact
something of a chap, not your ordinary run-of-the-mill boss. His
lightness of touch was forced, introduced like a gun in Act 3, laugh
you bastards or you'll rue the day. We hissed or rattled as was
fit.

A cluster developed by the door, obscuring the fern and doing violence
to the blind, people gathering the way they do around a train when the
train has yet to draw quite to a stop. I could see Gavin. I could see
Gavin's head at any rate. Gavin's too thick head of rich black Italian
hair. He was laughing. Or snorting, rather. He was snorting with Lisa.
Some comment made under his breath. Prick. The ability he had to share
an intimate remark despite the fact that the entire room was all but
poised on his toes.

Gavin was closest. Gavin would be the one to depress the door handle
when the moment came. I was furthest from, busy placing plastic cups
within plastic cups, creating the office equivalent of Russian dolls.
My back was turned - burying Russian dolls in the aluminium waste
receptacle - when the door opened and people started to file out. I
turned just as Clair - the last person in the room besides me - and
hard on the heels of Stu and - what was that new chap called? Did Keith
call him Hawkins? Was he really called Jack Hawkins? Maybe that was
Keith joking as well? - I turned just as Clair introduced the thumb and
index finger of her now I come to look pretty fingers into her mouth.
She catches my eyes and removes a wad of gum - at least two sticks'
worth, or two tabs, a good glob at any rate - which she sticks to the
back of the chair closest to the door.

Clair takes gum from her mouth and sticks it to her chair whilst
maintaining eye contact with me.

She doesn't speak and the moment is over in a flash and she is gone.
The whole thing feels like a dream or not that it is but fantasy. I can
feel myself becoming tense and prissy. She didn't do that did she? This
is what I think from the opposite corner of the table. I am the last
person in the room. The boardroom table is bare, aside from three
copies of the latest edition of the journal. I think about the fact
that she maintained eye contact some more. What did that mean? I am
shocked and despite myself shocked that I am shocked. I am shock caught
in facing mirrors. Clair. Her name blinks on and off in my head like a
dashboard light. In the space of one maybe two maybe three seconds I
thought: did that mean something, did that mean nothing, did she want
me to see it, did she think it important I see, was it done for my
benefit, am I the kind of man she thinks would be impressed by that, do
I mean nothing, am I the kind of man who gets unnecessarily worked up
about nothing, did she do that to rile me, did she do that to plunge me
into this orgy of thought, is this the beginning of something or the
middle of something or is it nothing? I shake my head and think I must
have imagined it. I must have imagined what I just saw. I think about
Clair again, quickly. I try to define what I know and realise I know
nothing. She is attractive, certainly. I admit as much. There have been
mornings in which she has passed my cubicle and I have thought yes,
Clair is attractive.

I'm being silly, I know. I move around the table and know, as I move,
that her gum is stuck to the back of the seat. I haven't imagined
anything. Stupid and banal to imagine that I imagined anything.

I stand and then crouch in front of it. The chewing gum is pink like
the inside of a seashell, like the belly of a crustacean, like I am
afraid to acknowledge the folds of skin one what would expect to meet
between Clair's legs. Bright pink gum squashed circular, her thumb
impression left like evidence. I can't explain the effect this has upon
me, just as I cannot remember ever feeling so compromised. It is
ridiculous and yet I am compromised. Of course it is terrible, leaving
gum stuck to the back of a chair in the company boardroom. It is
terrible she did it, terrible she saw me watch her, terrible that the
fact of my watching did nothing to deter her. And yet. The pink chewing
gum stares at me like a rebuke. It occurs to me that I should have
spoken at the time (as if the time is already historical despite the
fact that it couldn't be more than three or four minutes ago). Why
didn't I say something? What does that mean? What did Clair see in me?
What do others see in me? What is in me that I do not see?

I can't say that I noticed Clair chewing gum during the course of the
meeting. She must have been chewing but. I didn't notice. Perhaps
everybody noticed but me. Perhaps it was agreed. Perhaps Clair was told
to bring the gum to the attention of the person who paid the least
attention. Do I not pay attention? I think harder. Did I not even look
at Clair during the course of the meeting. I can imagine her mouth. Or
a mouth, at any rate. Thin lips. Thin lips with the suggestion of
fullness. I think about the gum in her mouth, all warm, and the gum and
the mouth and the tongue and maybe her hands in my hair as her tongue
explores my mouth and my hands on her all coalesce with the nausea that
tends to accompany jerky travel.

The gum is moist to the touch. Using the same fingers Clair did - the
thumb and index finger of my right hand - I pinch the sweet prawn of
gum and remove from the chair. I am done looking. The gum enters my
mouth (and is cooler than expected, is hypothermic, in need of
resuscitation, but retains flavour, sweetness, a hint of Clair's mouth
and the effect that has, this gum that has been in her mouth and now
mine).

*

I'm chewing. I consider walking by her cubicle (a bubble of gum
emerging from my mouth, popping as I pass, her shock returned, service
met, match point) but don't. Instead, I deposit my papers, the notes
made during the meeting, on the right hand corner of my desk and return
back the way I have just come, passing the meeting room and making for
the toilet. I enter a stall and lock the door after me, pinching the
nub end of my cock through my trousers before the door is even locked
to. I unfasten my belt, drop my trousers to the floor and crouch (as I
crouched before her gum, not ten minutes since now) hard. I cup the
toilet bowl with my thighs, the way I would cup Clair if I were taking
her from behind. I close my eyes and think about her. I think about her
at her desk, oblivious. I think about her on the phone. I think about
her responding to email. I think about her joking with Stu yesterday,
how she made him laugh, how he laughed like Ray Liotta. I think about
her chewing the gum. I think about her jaw working chewing the
gum.

I think about the gum.

I'm thinking about the gum.