Author: Akiko

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I looked at Tamsin. “I’m so sorry. I think I need to talk to her.”

“Oh, thank God,” Tamsin said, and then clapped a hand over her mouth. “I mean, no. I mean. Of course.” She clambered out in a flurry of steam and flustered dignity, wrapped herself in a towel and paused, glasses fogged. “For the record, I do think you two should kiss. I’ve got a tenner on it.” She winked, which on her was devastating, and left.

Kat watched her go, then slipped into the tub opposite me, put the champagne on the edge and handed me a glass.

“I’ve never been so jealous in my life,” she said.

“You? Of Tamsin?”

“Of anyone who got to sit this close to you without it being a war.” She sipped, then smiled at the bubbles. “Two years. I’ve been so bloody scared of you. You’re better at the clients than I am, you know that. You walk into a room and they trust you. I only beat you on paper, because I’m sharper with the numbers.”

“Don’t you dare be nice to me.”

“I’m trying to be honest.”

The steam rose. The water slid hot over my collarbones. Her foot slid up my calf under the water and rested lightly on my knee, and her eyes were so serious, so open, that I forgot what I’d been angry about.

I could kiss her right now. Or I could ask what I’d been dying to ask for a day: whether the promotion was really, finally hers.

→ I lean across the tub and kiss her

→ I ask her about the promotion first

← Back

The robe hit the tiles. Kat stood there in a black bikini, tall and tattooed and utterly shameless, and lowered herself into the tub with a long sigh. She sat to my left. Tamsin sat to my right. Between the three of us, the water boiled.

Kat poured champagne into a glass and handed it across me to Tamsin. Her arm brushed my breast, slowly, on the way past.

“Tamsin,” she said. “You’ve been staring at us for two years. Tell me you didn’t bet on this.”

Tamsin went crimson. “Ten pounds.”

“On what?”

“On the other thing.”

Kat threw her head back and laughed, a real laugh, loud and delighted, and I realised I’d never heard it before. I’d only ever heard the smirk. Under the water, her hand found my knee, and the other found Tamsin’s. I felt Tamsin shiver beside me.

“I propose a new game,” Kat said. “No whistle. No Gareth. We’re all adults, we all say yes out loud or we stop. Dani?”

“Yes,” I said, and my voice cracked.

“Tamsin?”

“God, yes.”

Kat’s hand slid up the inside of my thigh. Tamsin’s mouth was on my shoulder. Kat looked at me, eyes dark.

“Now,” she said. “Do we help each other, or do we make it a competition?”

She was looking at me. It was my call.

→ I tell them we all take care of each other

→ I propose a competition, and Tamsin judges

← Back

I stood, crossed the sauna in three steps and sat down on the bench right beside her, our thighs sticking together.

“Draw,” I said.

Kat turned her head. Her face was inches from mine, wet, flushed and a lot softer than I’d ever seen it.

“A draw,” she said slowly, “means nobody’s winning.”

“It does.”

“So what do we do with our hands?”

I didn’t answer. I put one hand on her jaw and kissed her.

It was nothing like I’d imagined, and I had imagined it, God help me, more than once in a meeting. Her mouth was hot and salt and unexpectedly gentle. Then her hand fisted in my hair and it was not gentle at all. She hauled me across her lap, my knees either side of her thighs, my bare chest crushed to hers, and kissed me like she was trying to drink me. My towel was long gone. I felt her fingers on the backs of my thighs, the swallows on her arm flexing as she gripped my arse.

“I’ve been wanting to do this,” she said into my throat, “since the Hargreaves pitch.”

“You absolute bitch,” I gasped, and kissed her again.

Outside the cedar door, voices. Laughter. Two people from Accounts, arguing about whether the sauna was too hot to go in. The little window in the door had steamed up, but not much.

Kat’s hand was between my legs. She didn’t stop.

→ I slip us out the staff door to my room

→ I keep kissing her and let them see

← Back

I stayed exactly where I was and stared back at her, and I didn’t blink.

It was a mistake and I knew it. Twenty minutes in, the air felt like soup. My heartbeat thumped in my ears and the cedar slats shimmered. But Kat was sitting there naked, long and lean and shining, the tattoos on her arm dark against her skin, one leg hooked up on the bench so that I could see everything. She was neatly trimmed, pink and glossy, and as I watched, she let her hand drift down her stomach and rest, deliberately, on her thigh.

“Cheating,” I croaked.

“There are no rules about where I put my hand.”

“There are rules about where you put it next.”

She laughed and her fingers slid an inch closer to where I could not stop looking. My towel was sticking to me. I peeled it off and dropped it, because it was either that or pass out in it. The heat licked over my bare breasts and my nipples went hard as pencil tips. Kat’s eyes dropped to them. Her breath caught.

“Twenty-five minutes,” she said, her voice thin. “Dani. This is stupid. I’m going to cook us both.”

“Then leave.”

“You leave.”

The room swam. I couldn’t tell whether I was dizzy from the sauna or from her. I could grit my teeth and hold on until she cracked. Or I could admit my head was spinning and make a stand for the door.

→ I hold on until she cracks

→ I stand up and make for the door

← Back

I stopped fighting. All at once I let my body go slack, and Kat, who’d been braced for a counter, tipped forward and landed on me, pinning me flat with her whole weight.

“You’re giving up?” she said, suspicious.

“I’m reconsidering my options.”

She straddled my hips, wraps still on her fists, and trapped my wrists with one forearm. Her knee pressed up between my legs, right where I was already aching, and my hips jerked before I could stop them. Kat felt it. She went very still. Then she smiled.

“Oh, Dani,” she said. “Is this what you wanted all along?”

“Shut up.”

“Make me.”

I tried. I bit her lip. She kissed me back with a growl, dragged my top over my head and my sports bra down, and took my tits in her hands, pinching my nipples until I swore. Her mouth went to my throat, my chest. She held me down with one hand and slid the other into the front of my leggings, rubbing me through my soaking knickers, slow and purposeful, like she was proving a point.

“Look at you,” she whispered. “Two years of that mouth, and you’re dripping.”

I could lie back and let her do exactly as she liked. Or, if I’m honest, I had one trick in my back pocket, an old judo throw from university that might put her flat on her back.

→ I submit and let her have me

→ I try my judo throw

← Back

I threw everything I had into one big roll and for once she didn’t counter. I ended up on top, my knees pinning her arms, her wrists in my hands above her head.

“Say it,” I panted.

“Say what?”

“That I won.”

Kat looked up at me, hair spread across the mat, chest heaving in the sports bra. A vein ticked in her throat. She was smiling like she’d waited two years for me to do this.

“You haven’t won anything,” she said. “But keep trying.”

I kissed her. I don’t know which of us was more shocked. She made a noise into my mouth, rough and hungry, then bit my lip hard enough that I yelped. I ground down against her stomach and felt her thighs shift, her hips tilt up to meet me.

I pushed her bra up over her tits. Small, firm, pale, a tiny tattooed star under the left one. I took a nipple in my mouth and sucked until she arched, her wrists straining in my hands, though she could have broken free in a second. She didn’t.

“Dani,” she said, hoarse. “Fuck. Do it.”

I dragged her shorts and knickers down to her knees. She was soaked, swollen, glistening. My fingers slid straight in, and she groaned like I’d hit a nerve.

I could do anything now. I could make her beg, make her come and make her watch me walk away. Or I could make this about both of us.

→ I keep her pinned and make her beg

→ I let go of her wrists and offer a deal

← Back

I told her goodnight. I told her I accepted her apology. I said I’d see her on Monday and we could be adults about it.

There was a very long silence on the other side of the door.

“Okay,” Kat said. Her voice was small. “Goodnight, Dani.”

I listened to her footsteps going down the corridor, and I hated myself with the full force of my training as an account manager.

I packed. I set my alarm for five, left a note for Gareth about a family emergency (my nan’s cat, but it was true in spirit) and crept out to catch the six-ten to Paddington.

It was still dark. The carriage was empty. I put my head against the cold window and tried to think about spreadsheets.

My phone buzzed.

A message from Kat. No words. Just a photo, taken in the corridor mirror: her in the grey hoodie, hair loose, eyes red, holding a sticky note against her ribs, over the tattoo. It said, “STICK THE LANDING.” And underneath, in her own handwriting: “I’m not going to chase you. But I’ll be at my desk on Monday at eight, and the door’s open.”

I stared at the screen. My thumb hovered. Behind my ribs I could feel the memory of her knee between my thighs, the drag of her breath on my cheek, the way she’d said, quite softly, I’m turned on too.

The train pulled out of the station.

I typed one word, Eight, sent it, and put my head back against the window and smiled at the dark.

Ending 16 of 16: Early Train. Go back and try a different choice for the full happy ending.

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I slid my T-shirt up, sat back against the door and opened my legs. The carpet was rough against my thighs.

“Kat,” I said. “Are you still touching your hair?”

“Yes.”

“Stop. Put your hand on your stomach.”

A rustle. A breath. “Okay.”

“Now lower. Slide it inside your joggers.”

“Dani…” Her voice cracked on my name. “Fuck. Are you doing this?”

“I’m going to tell you what I’d do,” I said. “And you’re going to listen. And you can stay on your side of the door.”

I told her. I told her I’d push her against that door and kiss her until she forgot who she worked for. I’d go down on my knees. I’d lick her through her knickers first, so slowly, then peel them off and use my tongue where she needed it, and I wouldn’t stop until she begged, because I was a very patient woman and she had two years to pay for.

I heard her moan through the wood. I heard her breath catch, her fingers moving, the soft wet sound of it. I touched myself too, my fingers circling my clit, my head tipped back on the door, my voice getting lower and rougher with every filthy thing I said.

“Dani,” she gasped. “I’m going to…”

“Come for me.”

She did. A long, low cry. Then I did, shaking and biting my own wrist so I didn’t wake the corridor.

We sat there, breathless, one door apart.

“Tomorrow,” she said, a bit shakily. “Open it.”

“We’ll see,” I said. “You’ll have to earn it.”

I could hear her grinning.

Ending 15 of 16: Door Between Us. Go back and try a different choice for the full happy ending.

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I picked up the pillow beside me and hit her across the face with it.

Kat stared. She had wine in one hand. She put the bottle down very carefully on the bedside table, picked up the other pillow, and said, “Oh, you absolute cow,” and swung.

It got out of hand extremely fast. Within ninety seconds there were feathers in my hair, one pillow had split, the duvet was on the floor and we were rolling around the bed, laughing and shrieking and swatting each other, Kat’s long legs scissoring round my waist, my knee in her stomach, her tattooed arm round my neck in a hold I couldn’t break.

She pinned me. Her face was inches from mine, flushed, laughing. Feathers drifted down. She stopped laughing.

“Dani,” she said.

“Kat.”

“I’m going to kiss you now. If you don’t want that, say so.”

“Shut up and do it.”

She kissed me hard. Her hand slid up under my T-shirt and I tore her hoodie off, we fell back on the bed in a flurry of feathers, and we did it fast, rough and breathless. She got my knickers off, I got her joggers down. Her fingers were inside me before I’d caught my breath and I was rubbing her clit against my thigh, both of us gasping, snarling, coming close together in a clash of teeth and hair.

In the morning we sat at opposite ends of the breakfast table, pretending not to know each other, with feathers in our hair.

Tamsin looked from one of us to the other and quietly slid a tenner across the table to Gareth.

Ending 14 of 16: Pillow Fight. Go back and try a different choice for the full happy ending.

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I kissed her. I didn’t plan to. It just happened, the way a sneeze happens, and it was better than a sneeze.

Kat’s mouth was soft and tasted of red wine. She pulled back an inch, eyes wide, then kissed me again, slowly, her hand sliding up the back of my bare thigh under my T-shirt. I said her name against her mouth. She said mine.

“Is this the apology?” I whispered.

“It’s the start of one.”

I tugged her hoodie over her head. Underneath she was in a plain black bra, her skin goose-pimpled, the swallows on her arm shining in the lamplight. I pushed her back onto the bed and took the bra off, kissed her nipples, her stomach, the script along her ribs that said stick the landing, and she shivered and slid her fingers into my hair.

She pulled my T-shirt off. We lay skin to skin, and she kissed my throat, my breasts, and then she moved slowly down, hands on my hips, and looked up at me.

“Tell me what you like.”

“Slow,” I said. “Then not slow.”

She started slow. Her tongue circled my clit, patient and light, until I was begging, then not slow at all, two fingers working inside me and her mouth on me hard, and I came with my back arched and my fingers knotted in the sheets, her name over and over.

Afterwards I returned the favour, slowly.

We fell asleep with the wine untouched and her arm round my waist.

In the morning she said, “So. Truce?”

“Truce,” I said, and stole the duvet.

Ending 13 of 16: Apology Accepted. Go back and try a different choice for the full happy ending.

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