An Orchid's Tail

“Mrs. Pollis?” She didn’t blink, but continued to stare out the window. “Mrs. Pollis? Should we talk about the basement issue?”

“What?” Caroline’s eyes regained focus. “Apologies, Thomas. My mind was somewhere else entirely.” She let her eyebrows relax. They were aching from being furrowed for so long.

“Everything okay, Ma’am?” Thomas was a slight, well-dressed, overly formal junior staff member. He was seated across from her, his laptop open. The other three people in the department were all looking at her.

Caroline wondered how much of the conversation she’d missed. She glanced back at her own tablet, crossed her legs, and adjusted her skirt briefly. Clearing her throat, she said, “Yes. Let’s continue. To answer your question, no, we don’t need to tell them about the basement issue. Their contract stipulates that they can’t use the basement for the event. Let’s not worry the client without cause. But tell George that we need proof that he has at least scheduled the repairs before the event date. To cover our ass.”

Thomas nodded. The others took notes. She folded her tablet up and glanced out at the heavy clouds covering the Puget Sound. Her eyes were pulled down to the dark blue and gray of the water.

Taking her hint, her team cleared out of Caroline’s office. “Thomas. One second.” He stopped in the doorway as the others filed out. “A polite reminder. Please do not call me ma’am. Caroline, if we’re alone or out of the office. Mrs. Pollis, if we’re around the team.”

“Yes, Ma’ - Mrs. Pollis.” He sighed. “Caroline. Got it. Habits.” She nodded, still looking out at the Sound. He took that as the end of the conversation and left.

Once he was gone, she made a cursory effort to work, but her eyes continued to flicker out the massive window. Time crawled. She willed her tablet to read 5:30. When it ticked over to 5:31 at last, she stood, straightened her blazer and her skirt, shut everything down at her desk, left her office, and moved into the main hallway.

Her eyes flitted back and forth. The office seemed empty. There was a semi-strict rule that employees stop working at five on the dot and should be gone by fifteen after. Her team often stretched that rule, and she’d told them that they’d get an actual reprimand if she caught them in the building after 5:30.

When she got to the front door, she found it still unlocked as it should be and left it that way. Turning, she walked back down the entire length of the hall, ensuring the office was empty. Returning to the lobby space, she faced the guest restrooms. Pushing lightly on the men’s room door, she called out, “Anyone in here?” Silence.

Opening it further until it hit the wall, she kicked down the rubber door stop with the toe of her Prada pump. The first stall door was partially open, and she stepped inside, closing the door but not locking it. She hooked her handbag on the back of the door.

With a precision born from practice, she began methodically undressing. Her blazer over the hook, her blouse over the blazer, her bra over her top, her skirt on top of her bra, her underwear on top of her skirt. Then she began taking off her watch, her jewelry, her wedding ring, placing them all carefully in the outside pocket of her handbag.

Finally, her shoes. She placed them neatly, side by side, underneath the edge of the stall door. Taking a deep breath, she faced the toilet, completely naked now, and looked down at it. It wasn’t awful. The janitorial staff didn’t come in until late each night, so this was just an average Tuesday’s worth of men’s filth. There were a couple of semi-dried urine dots on the seat. A couple more were accompanying a short pubic hair stuck to the rim where the lid’s loop separated. There was a brown skid in the base of the bowl.

Caroline faced the door and sat down on the toilet seat without cleaning it. She leaned back against the cold tile wall, the chrome flushing mechanism pressing into her lower back. She put her right foot up against the metal toilet paper dispenser mounted to the wall and spread her other leg out wide, letting her foot go underneath to the next stall. She briefly wondered what sort of substances were on her sole now.

Caroline's heart was beating faster, and her left hand found her nipple. Her right hand drifted down between her legs, over her shaved vulva, and across her labia. A shiver ran through her as she pulled her middle finger away, a long trail of wetness already sticking to it. A quiet moan slid out of her throat. She bit her lip and then ran that finger back over her clit and between her lips.

“Uhhhhhhhhhhhh,” She let her voice get louder, wanting it to roll through the whole office. Caroline’s thoughts went back to the usual place, and her eyes rolled back. The intensity of her masturbation increased in strength and speed, and her index finger joined her middle finger to stretch her walls just a little bit further.

An orgasm rolled through her, catching her by surprise with its speed, and she shook and shivered on the toilet. Her fist pounded against the wall as she looked to the ceiling. “Ohhh fuck!” It didn’t go on as long as she’d hoped it would, though. Less than a minute later, her breathing was already slowing. But her brain wasn’t ready to let this opportunity end. Sucking on her fingers, she decided she needed to come again. A few seconds later, her hand went back to work, and she re-braced herself against the wall and the toilet paper dispenser.

She froze. Positive that she’d just heard something. A noise, a voice.

It returned. A man’s voice. Maybe in the lobby. Footsteps. Her heart was going so fast she worried she might faint. She moved her left leg up and pushed it against the metal door.

“Okay, talk soon.” Someone hanging up from a mobile call. She didn’t recognize the voice. The footsteps were closer now. He heard dress shoes clicking on the tile floor. They passed the stalls and stopped in front of the urinals.

Taking a chance, she let herself breathe shallowly through her mouth, listening to his urination splatter against the ceramic. The man zipped up and moved to the sink. At least he’s washing his hands, Caroline thought. He used paper towels to dry his hands.

Two footsteps. Then they stopped. She couldn’t see his feet. Hyperventilating was a real possibility for her now. Why had she taken the chance of leaving the front door unlocked? She knew the answer, but still, it pissed her off.

“Hello?” A pause. “Hello? Someone here?”

Then it dawned on her. The Pradas. They were on the floor underneath the door of the stall and in plain view. He must have missed them when he came in. She considered saying something. Making up some kind of excuse. But nothing came to mind that didn’t sound ridiculous. A knock on the stall door would surely be next. At the very least, he would push on it.

The tips of his shoes showed under her door. But instead of a knock or a push, there was a pause, and then two fingers hooked themselves into the backs of her shoes and picked them up. Then the sound of his shoes receded, out of the bathroom, out of the lobby, and out the front door.

She breathed a sigh of relief while simultaneously exclaiming, “What the fuck?” After waiting another minute, she dropped her legs back to the floor, got up, and got dressed. “Who the fuck takes a pair of women’s shoes?” She muttered.

Peeking into the lobby, she confirmed it was empty. Letting out a long sigh, she walked through the front door, entered the lock code for the front door, and then headed for her car, feeling annoyed with every barefooted step.

When Caroline got home, she slipped upstairs and changed before William or the kids could notice her lack of shoes. It was William’s night to make dinner, and when she came back downstairs, she could smell his chicken alfredo. She found Tracy in the living room, playing on her tablet. Kissing her on the forehead, she said, “Hi sweetie. Dinner will be ready in just a few minutes.” Caroline clocked the timer on her daughter’s tablet, noting the girl had three minutes left on her allotted time.

Garrett was in the kitchen, reading. Angling her head down, she spied the title: Meditations by Descartes. “Heavy reading, huh, kiddo? Be sure to wash your hands thoroughly before we eat.” The teen nodded briefly and smiled, but it was thin and unconvincing. “Everything okay?” He shrugged and nodded again.

Caroline let it go and headed into the kitchen, and wrapped her arms around her husband’s back. William was tall and thin, and she pressed her face into the middle of his back. “Smells amazing, babe.”

“Hi, my love. Work go okay?” He was slowly stirring his sauce. Noodles were softening in a boiling pot on the adjacent burner.

“Yeah. Nothing to tell.” She squeezed him again and lowered her voice. “Is Garrett okay? He seems a little...off again.”

William stiffened slightly and whispered back to her, “Let it drop for now. We’ll talk later.”

Dinner was quiet. Everyone at the table lost in their own thoughts. Later that night, Caroline came again with her legs over William’s shoulders, his lips wrapped around her clit. He came on her chest after she gave him one of her signature blowjobs.

William was lying in their bed in his boxers, watching Caroline wash her chest off in the bathroom, when she said, “So, are we going to talk about what’s going on with Garrett?”

He sighed. “Can it wait until tomorrow?”

She looked at him with a look he knew well. “Well, it can’t now. What’s going on, William?”

Her husband propped himself up on the pillows underneath him, putting his back against the headboard. “Garret is having some...issues at school.”

“Okay...” She dried her chest off and stood in the doorway.

“He’s having some trouble with a bully.” Caroline didn’t like that he said it as though she were somehow the problem. But her protective instincts were in overdrive.

“We should talk to the school, the principal! We need to step in immediately, babe. I have zero tolerance for that kind of thing for our kids.” Somehow, the look on his face was agitating her even more. “What? What is that look you’re giving me?”

He beckoned her over to the bed, and she reluctantly sat on the edge, feeling her frustration getting close to the boiling point.

William took her hand and said, “I’ve already spoken to the principal. This has been going on for a while now.” He saw the look in her eyes and kept talking quickly. “I’m handling it, okay? The principal, a counselor, and I are all aware of the situation. I’m talking with Garrett about it regularly.”

“I - what? Why didn’t he say something to me? Why didn’t you?”

William took a deep breath. “Garrett asked me not to tell you. He’s...afraid of disappointing you. Of your reaction.”

“What?” She stood. “My reaction?”

“Hon,” he said with a kindness to his tone that just made her angrier. “You have a tendency to be a bit...controlling. The kids love you. And so do I. Garrett just felt more comfortable confiding in me about it, and we all agreed that we’d try to keep it between the two of us and the school for now.”

Caroline closed her eyes tightly, and tears began running down her cheeks. Her anger was flooding out of her body, being replaced by shock and sorrow. A sob grew in her chest and came out as she tried to speak. “Why - why - why are you telling me now?”

“We haven’t been able to get Garrett where we want to be or to stop the bullying. I’d hoped we could. But after he came home crying today, I asked him if I could tell you because I felt like you deserved to know. I told him that I’d make sure you didn’t overreact or embarrass him or make him feel any worse.”

There weren’t any words she could summon. Caroline moved around to her side of the bed and crawled in. She curled into the fetal position and cried. William put a comforting hand on her shoulder, and she didn’t brush it off. But her sobs continued well into the night.

When she was finally able to drift off, she dreamed of water; Deep, dark, black water.