Chapter Text
The Department of Social Affairs and Citizenship had a weird vibe that Monday.
You’d been expecting it to be a bit tense, what with the sudden resignation of the Prime Minister, the appointment of the new Prime Minister, and the reshuffle that followed. But this was beyond that. It was as if the office had been turned upside down, off-centre, and tilted, and just all around weird.
Ollie Reeder had been weird that morning, too. Usually, you were both fairly quiet in the mornings, shuffling around each other trying to make coffee and cereal before you had to rush out the door to catch the tube to work. But, he’d been quiet quiet. Like, almost silent. He’d smoked two cigarettes on the way here, when usually he waited until 10 am to have his first smoke to give him a ten-minute break away from everyone else. He barely looked at you as you slid under his arm on the tube carriage to keep from getting thrown into a stranger in a suit. He just chewed his lip and grew progressively more grey-coloured as the morning went on.
Ollie was only this quiet when he was scared. Usually, he was an arrogant, stuck-up prick who was only ever out for himself. He would throw you in front of the bus your landlord was driving if you could get a discount on your rent. He was never thrown by anything. When he was nervous, his quips became meaner, his body more frazzled, jumpy. When he was scared, he got quiet. His job had been thrown up into the air, and there was nobody there to catch it.
When you got to the DoSAC office that morning, Terri Coverly had immediately thrown you into work. Usually, you were in charge of the diary, but there was no diary to look at, no Minister to bother with calls, and meetings, and emails. Just safe civil servants running loose, trying to clear out Hugh Abbot’s old office, and advisors slumped at their desks waiting to be of use.
You fixed your thin, rectangular reading glasses onto the edge of your nose to double-check the documents you were rifling through. It was your job to put the documents you’d pulled from Hugh’s office in the right drawer. And if you found any of Hugh’s private documents, you could either shred them or throw them in a box to post to him.
“Rem-tard in Energy and Climate Change.” Your head shot up to Ollie behind his desk, scrolling through the Ministerial updates as they updated on his computer. He had nothing else to do, even though Terri had asked him to clear out his desk a million times since you showed up an hour ago.
“Really? I’m not getting that,” argued back Terri, crossing over to check her computer, which she’d left open for updates while the two of you worked around the office. “It’s not on here. How did you get that?”
“Refresh the page!”
You rounded Terri’s desk, next to the double desk that you and Robyn Murdoch shared either side of, to see her computer screen. There it was. Paul Remmington. You pointed to the next cabinet minister that popped up, your recently manicured fingernail almost touching the screen.
“Fatty’s staying put. They’re not moving him.”
“Yeah, well, that’s because they don’t have five big blokes and a winch.” You grabbed a tiny paper aeroplane that you’d made for Terri weeks ago in an act of office boredom, and flicked it towards Ollie. It smacked against his shiny, curl-covered forehead and landed on his keyboard. The look he shot you was unimpressed. A look you had become used to after living with him for two years in your shitty flat, always trying to rile the other up.
He clearly wasn’t in the mood for your teasing when he was worried about the safety of his job.
“They couldn’t really demote Fatty, because he knows too much.”
Terri went back to the box of documents sitting on your desk, scrambling through them while you grabbed another box, plopped it onto the desk next to her, and started working too. There were too many boxes with too many documents you had to sort through, and no minister to pretend to be working for. You were the only person checking which ones were Hugh’s private documents and which ones were department documents.
“Well.” Glenn Cullen finally appeared, twisting his phone in his hand. You hadn’t even seen him come into the office this morning, and you usually arrived at the same time, coffee cups in hand, blinking tiredness from your eyes. When he hadn’t been there to let you through the revolving door before him, you thought he’d just decided to pack it in. “That’s Hugh gone then.”
“That’s so sad, isn’t it?” hummed Terri. She hadn’t exactly liked Hugh. None of you, apart from Glenn, who was clearly his best friend, had liked Hugh Abbot, the previous Secretary of State for Social Affairs and Citizenship. He had never been very good at the job, rarely came up with ideas of his own, and let the rest of you take the fall for all of his issues. You weren’t exactly sad to see him go. You just wish you knew who was taking his place.
“You don’t give a shit!”
“No, I suppose I don’t.”
You’d begun sorting documents into the filing cabinet behind your desk, firstly by theme, then by alphabetical order. Everybody in the office let you sort out the filing cabinets because you were the only one pedantic enough to make sure everything was where you wanted it to be. Terri handed over the stack she’d pulled out and sorted into an OFFICE pile, versus the HUGH pile sitting on her desk, to put away on her behalf. You hoped someone nice was coming into the office. Someone nice but competent. Someone who could do the job to a high enough degree, but still remembered to speak to you like human beings. You hoped it was a woman – you’d never had the chance to work for a female Minister yet. It’d be a very nice step towards female empowerment in the Labour Party, you thought.
Probably, she would just let you all take the fall for her when something went wrong. Everything always went wrong in DoSAC.
“Northern Ireland Office – Thom Rudd.”
“Who?” you asked Ollie, peering at him over the top of your thin-rimmed reading glasses. You always used one of the pens sitting pretty in your desk caddy to hold your hair up in a bun, forgetting your bobble for the millionth time, and already a few strands were starting to fall into your eyes. You huffed to get them out of the way. “Who’s Thom Rudd?”
“Isn’t he in Harry Potter?” asked Terri, flitting back over to Ollie’s desk to see the updates page he was constantly refreshing.
“Thom Rudd is army slang for standing up buggery.”
“Glenn,” you groaned, throwing him an annoyed look over your shoulder like you always did when he said something inappropriate in the office. He merely shrugged in response and returned to texting Hugh his sorry platitudes for the loss of his position.
You’d all been well aware that when the new Prime Minister was announced and came into power, the reshuffle would take over this first week completely. New ministers, new positions, new assistants. With Hugh gone, it wouldn’t be long before Glenn was next, dragging his feet behind him, feeling like an old dog left behind at the shelter with nobody wanting him. At least you were safe. As a civil servant, it could be a whole new party coming into power and taking over the offices, and you would still be safe.
God, if the Conservatives got into power at the next election, you’d probably just pack it in and move home for good. Work in your local library if it managed to stay open. File documents for some lawyer who kept trying to have an affair with you. Do literally anything but work for the Tories.
Terri left you in charge of refiling the documents so she could finish clearing out Hugh’s office until all that was left was the furniture. It’d probably be easier if Robyn were here to help out, carry things when the rest of you didn’t want to. But, of course, she just had to take this Monday off. Some family member’s birthday. Her mum, or fiancé, or something. You couldn’t remember what she told you on Friday. You’d never even taken your own birthday off, let alone someone else’s. Maybe you should start doing that. Most likely, everybody else in this office did that.
Across from you, both Glenn and Ollie started packing up their desks like Terri had been bugging them to do since this morning. Whoever the new Minister was going to be would drop them for their own people. Everybody always had their own people. And then, you’d have to introduce yourself to new special advisors who treated you like shit for just being another civil servant they didn’t care about. At least, you actually liked working with Glenn and Ollie.
You finished sorting some of Hugh’s personal documents – extra house bills, tax files, a crumpled-up divorce settlement from his wife – into a separate box to post to him when Terri came flying back out of the now empty office, head spinning every which way. She always got herself worked up into a tiff when she really didn’t need to. You’d gotten better at calming her down with a perfectly-made cup of tea.
“Have you two finished emptying your desks yet?”
“Yes, don’t worry, Terri, we’re all ready to go.”
“I’m just trying to get everything organised for whenever whoever arrives. They are gonna have their own people. It’s gonna be very embarrassing if your hand cream’s still in the drawer.”
“Hand cream?” Glenn echoed, flabbergasted. You perked up a little, brown tape hanging from your mouth as you taped Hugh’s box closed.
“Oh, do you have spare hand cream? Mine ran out the other day, and I forgot to bring in a new one.”
“I don’t have any hand cream!” Glenn snapped back, dropping his head into his hands to massage the stress from his temples. You shrugged off his sudden flaring temper, knowing he was only getting himself worked up because his friend was gone, and he’d probably be gone by the end of the day, too. You didn’t really know what special advisors did once the person they advised wasn’t there anymore. Ollie would probably spend all day milling about the flat in his thick green jumper you always tried to steal in the winter, eating all your favourite snacks, and shooting up the heating bill. But, then again, he would probably be okay. He could easily weasel his way up any politician’s arse and find himself a job.
He wasn’t as loyal a dog as Glenn.
↕ ↕ ↕ ↕ ↕ ↕ ↕ ↕ ↕ ↕
You taped up the last of Hugh’s boxes and scrawled his address on the top in your favourite black Sharpie that you never let anyone else use. You capped your Sharpie, pushed it back into your pen holder, and noticed the sudden change in atmosphere in the department. It was hushed but loud at the same time. Every whisper grew in crescendo until Terri finally cut through it.
“Who the fuck is Nicola Murray?”
You leaned over to see her computer, eyebrows pinching at the new announcement that flashed across her screen. Nicola Murray, the new Secretary of State for the Department of Social Affairs and Citizenship. You assumed it was a last-minute, last-person sort of thing. Just another Minister none of you had ever heard about getting to be in charge of a department she probably knew nothing about.
She looked nice enough from her headshot. Smiley, and kind-eyed, and young-ish. Younger than Hugh was, at least. Not as young as Dan Miller, who you’d much rather prefer, just because you’d at least have something to look at when you were bored.
“She’ll be on her way here already. I’m going to go meet her downstairs.” Terri rushed off before any of you could stop her, muttering to herself about first appearances, and you shared a fond look with Ollie. Terri might annoy most of you to the very ends of your wits, but she only ever wanted what was best for this department, and she would make sure that Nicola Murray – whoever she was – knew that too.
“While she’s pacing at entrance, I’m gonna take these down to the mail room. Make sure Hugh gets his stuff.”
“Need help?” Ollie asked, pushing himself to his feet until you waved him off. You could wheel a couple of boxes to the lift. He helped you lift the boxes onto the trolley and accompanied you to the lift, pushing two buttons when you finally managed to fit inside. He was, most likely, going outside for a smoke. His third of the day. He only ever chain-smoked when he was nervous, usually leaving his smoking for a heavy drinking session or when he was trying to pick up another girl with his not-very-impressive lighter tricks.
“You feeling okay?” you asked your flatmate, watching him use his fingers to drum a random beat against the top of Hugh’s boxes. His eyes barely flicked to you behind his glasses, and he shrugged like he had no reason to be feeling nervous. You knew him better than that, though.
There was a side of people you only saw when you lived together.
“Not really an answer, Ollie.”
“I’m fine. I’m just – just going about my day.”
“You’ll be fine. Really. Even if Nicola has an entirely new squad of people, you’ll find a job somewhere.”
“Oh yes, thank you, Susan Boyle, very inspiring.”
You glared at Ollie and kept the rest of your niceties to yourself. You knew no matter what you said, he wasn’t going to listen to you. He was just going to continue beating himself up with the idea that he wouldn’t have a job by the end of the day. You were just thankful you had a date tonight, a reason not to take the tube home with Ollie, something to keep you out of the flat while he spent the rest of the night moping to himself. You’d be pissed if you got home and he’d drunk any of your wine.
He stepped out on the ground floor, tugging his cigarettes out of his inside blazer pocket, and you went further down to the basement. The mailroom guys perked up when you pushed the trolley into the room, used to not seeing anybody all day, used to only ever seeing the young, new civil servants who got sent down here to do the scut jobs nobody else wanted to do.
You smiled at them as kindly as you could. It was dark and grimy down here, smelling of stale coffee and chewing gum, sweat and damp. You had always been good at small talk, but the mail guys were making it extremely hard as they took your boxes and double checked the addresses and barely responded to any of your prompts. You even asked if they heard about any of the big reshuffles, and they only shrugged, mumbled something you couldn’t quite hear, and then let you know they’d send out the boxes that day. You left them to it. It was easier than being in that dingy dungeon mail room. You’d go back up to your desk and wait for Nicola Murray to arrive, now that you’d gotten rid of the last bits of Hugh that were left behind.
Your phone vibrated when you were in the lift, contemplating running out for a cigarette break before Nicola arrived, and you tugged it out of your blazer pocket to read before you got back to the floor. You’d been expecting Ollie, telling you that Nicola was already up there, and you were going to have to make an awkward entrance just after her. It wasn’t.
It was Malcolm Tucker.
MALC: Fuck this fucking day. Are you free tonight?
You didn’t reply. You usually did because you were usually free. You liked Malcolm, liked spending time with him, liked the way he fucked you. You didn’t want to see his reaction when you told him you had a date tonight.
You got back just in time to finish cleaning up your desk, made a little skewiff from the document sorting, your pens a little shaken around, and your paper diary not in its usual place. You slipped your reading glasses back into their pale pink case, which you usually kept in your top drawer. You had an extra pair in your bag – just in case. You were always good at carrying extras of things just in case.
Ollie joked that just in case was your special little catchphrase. You hated that he was right.
“Ladies and Gentlemen.” You straightened, brushing down your soft grey pencil skirt, ridding yourself of the dust that clung to every inch of the mail room. You couldn’t understand how the mailmen stayed down there for the whole shift. “May I introduce to you the new Secretary of State for the Department of Social Affairs and Citizenship. Nicola Murray.”
Applause ran around the office, and your new boss shuffled on her feet, playing with her perfectly styled brown hair, suddenly uncomfortable under your everwatching gazes. Her dress was loud, a bit of an eyesore, and blue. She’d have to change before she was allowed to do any interviews. No way would Malcolm let her go on screen wearing blue. Green, she might have been able to get away with, maybe even yellow, but not blue. Never blue. Hugh wasn’t even allowed to wear a blue tie.
Oh. You still had one of Hugh’s ties in your drawer. His silly teddy bear one. You’d give it to Glenn as a parting gift; he’d appreciate that.
Nicola shook all your hands, called Glenn Ken, tried to call Ollie Oliver – which he hated – and said she found the pen in your hair very interesting, which you knew, in that tone of voice meant she hated it. You kept your smile polite, though you could feel it starting to wane with every passing second, and only when she slipped into her new office and shut the door to answer the phone, did you finally let it drop.
“Interesting,” you echoed, mimicking her accent. “Posh twat.” It earned a snort of laughter from Ollie beside you. You’d gotten pretty good at mocking accents in the couple of years you had known him, since you had yet to adopt the posh RP accent that seemed to infect the entirety of the government. You probably only got away with having a Scottish accent because Malcolm and Jamie had similar ones, and everyone was too busy being afraid of them to joke about it.
With Robyn off for the day, there was no one to do all the scut jobs you had to do when you first joined the department and were still getting your footing. But you were in desperate need of a caffeine boost and didn’t really care if it made you look like an intern again when you went around the office asking for coffee orders. Most of the time, Robyn just got your coffee from the shitty machine near the Tourism department, but you needed something good. Something that allowed you to get a little bit of fresh air. Something to get away from the tension that clung to every corner of the office. So, you grabbed your coat, your handbag, and the packet of cigarettes you usually kept hidden in your desk to stop you smoking so much, and decided to pop out to the cafe across the road where you usually get lunch.
As soon as you stepped outside, expertly dodging other civil servants sent on errands for their new Ministers, you lit up the cigarette between your fingers. The cafe was down the street and around the corner from Whitehall, so you had more than enough time to smoke, to try to destress as you followed the flow of the crowds towards the cafe. It was nearing eleven. Soon enough, it’d be lunch time, and you’d be back outside to try to find a sandwich you could stomach.
You hadn’t really been stressed this morning. Your job was safe, you were sure the new Minister couldn’t be any worse than Hugh, and you thought your day would have been easy enough just cleaning up the mess left behind. But Ollie had set you on edge with his pacing, and nail biting, and the fear that stole away all his good jokes and turned them into sarcastic criticisms instead. You thought he’d maybe spent a bit too much time around Malcolm, picking up all his bad habits of just being downright mean when he got worked up.
And Nicola didn’t like the pen in your hair.
You ordered two cappuccinos, two lattes, and a black coffee. You added two sugars to one of the cappuccinos for Ollie, a little bit of cinnamon to your latte, and left the rest as they were to carry back in the cardboard cup holder. On the way out, you threw your change into the tip jar, and a kind stranger helped you light your second cigarette outside while you held your latte in one hand and the cup holder in the other. When you got back to the office building, one of the business analysts for the Department for Business and Trade held your coffee while you stubbed out the last remnants of your cigarette and threw it in the bin.
It felt normal. It felt like your first week two years ago, when you tried to be quick on your feet at every turn, when you tried not to trip up, when you tried to make everybody happy. You started smoking because Ollie smoked and you thought it would be a good way to bond, sitting in your big bay window in your living room and smoking into the night sky. Maybe you’d grown more jaded as you spent longer in London. Maybe the smog and the artificial lights of the underground were bad for you.
Maybe you’d be prettier if you moved back to Scotland.
Terri emerged from the cafeteria just as you reached the lifts, and you held your lift open for her to rush over into. She held a fruit salad in one hand, and change in the other, and she was a little out of breath as she stood beside you, remembering how to smile for Nicola again. You handed over her black coffee as soon as she pocketed her change.
“Fruit salad for our lovely new Secretary of State?” you asked. Terri instantly caught onto the tone of your voice, and she leaned a little closer, conspiratorial.
“She says fruit calms her down.” You could tell Terri clearly didn’t agree. “I ordered new clothes for her, you might have to help choose.”
You hummed. “The blue was a bit of an eyesore.”
“A bit loud.” This time, you both hummed. You watched the floors tick upwards. You were getting close to your floor. “She’s a size 12, you know?” That wasn’t surprising, but you nodded anyway, like it was interesting. Terri clearly didn’t like it. “And my phone’s been blowing up. Her husband has connections to the PFI.”
You shared a look. Interesting. Malcolm would be on it as soon as he heard, shutting it down. She couldn’t have any connections making her look dodgy, and her husband having connections to the private finance initiative that came from this department she was now supposed to run was incredibly dodgy. Someone would have to sort it out.
Why could nothing ever just go right for DoSAC?
Terri announced your arrival with the mention of the fruit cup, and Nicola cut you both a smile. Ollie and Glenn grabbed their coffee from the cardboard carrier as you passed by them to hand Nicola her cappuccino. You were going to be nice. You were even going to be too nice. Maybe she hadn’t had enough time to like you or the rest of the team yet, but you weren’t going anywhere, and you weren’t going to let the atmosphere grow any more tense just because you and Terri liked having a bitch and a moan when you were alone. You’d taken it upon yourself from letting the office grow too awkward. Starting the day off with a brand new Secretary of State was already awkward enough without throwing in stubborn arguments and unmoving frowns.
You were just feeling grouchy because everybody was treating today like the end of times.
Nicola filed through different dark coloured outfits to change into, and she took her coffee from your hands with a genuine smile. But as soon as you stepped closer, even she wasn’t good enough to hide her very obvious sniff.
You should have borrowed gum for the receptionist.
“Do you smoke?”
“Sometimes.”
Her hum was enough to tell you she didn’t approve. You sipped your coffee to fix the scowl that so desperately wanted to pull down your lips. She’d have to get used to it. Almost everyone in this building smoked when they got too stressed out. You’d watched Ollie sit outside on his laptop, a cigarette and a Red Bull in the same hand, as he tried to fix yet another mess you’d been thrown into by Hugh. Even Glenn partook from time to time. And yes, he always used the word partake when you asked if he wanted to borrow one.
You reached for the outfit that would most make her look like she was leading a funeral procession. “I think this is the one. Very sophisticated.”
Terri appeared at your side with a verbal agreement and handed over the cup of fruit salad. Nicola frowned at her now full hands, then back up at the black two-piece hanging on the railing. You were still being nice. You couldn’t let yourself not be nice. Even though your job was safe, that didn’t mean you couldn’t be transferred to a different department, and you didn’t really want to get used to a whole new department. You pulled down the suit for her, and her smile brightened with a genuineness you weren’t expecting.
“I’ve just had a couple of press calls,” said Terri.
She was Head of Communications, and that meant dealing with all the press, all the time, good or bad. Especially if it was bad. When it was bad, she also had to deal with Malcolm Tucker’s especially foul mood, and nobody really wanted to be on the receiving end of that. She had been gone for a good few months, looking after her ailing father and then grieving after his passing, and you’d stepped up to fill in for her after her departure. It had been far more difficult than you were expecting. So many press calls, so many questions to answer. You’d never been more thankful when she came back, when you could give her back her desk and her job, and you’d never have to worry about it again.
You were the Diary Manager – and a damn good one at that. You made sure the Secretary of State didn’t have any clashing commitments, replied to all their most important emails, and when you weren’t doing that, you made sure they looked busy enough to keep Malcolm off their back. It had never been particularly difficult, and most often you just felt like a glorified secretary, but you always got to go home by 5 pm, so any complaints you had fell away as soon as you stepped out the door.
“Couple of the papers asking about your husband and the PFI.”
“Already? My God, they’re so on it. Aren’t they?”
“Could you brief me?”
“Yes, sorry… It’s honestly nothing.” You and Terri shared a look she luckily didn’t catch as you followed her into her office. “Uh, James works for Albany, which was the company that was awarded the PFI prison contract by this department. I know that sounds bad, but actually James wasn’t at Albany when the contracts were awarded, and I wasn’t here, so… It’s not a conflict of interest.”
“I think you could just run that by Malcolm. He’s on his way.”
Your back straightened like a natural reaction to his name. In probably less than a minute, he’d be walking down that corridor right towards you, and you would send him your usual polite – simpering, though you tried not to be quite so obvious – smile, and when nobody was looking, he’d wink at you. And, like every time, even though you told yourself not to, you’d find yourself in a storage cupboard while Malcolm fucked you until your head was spinning.
You couldn’t – absolutely could not – fuck Malcolm today when you had a very nice, very polite date tonight.
“Not Malcolm… He’s what? Now? Coming in?”
“Yes, he’ll be up in twenty-five seconds.”
You ducked your head, dropped the outfit onto one of Nicola’s chairs, and scurried back to your desk to hide behind it. To hide the grey pencil skirt, you knew Malcolm liked because he could see every curve of your body. To hide the way you’d cross your legs the moment you saw him, because just the sight of him was enough to turn you on. To hide the way you craved yet another cigarette already, because today was turning out to be too damn stressful. You slipped your glasses on to see your computer screen as it slowly whirred to life again. Nicola paced in front of your desk, muttering to herself about Malcolm, pretending not to be nervous about his sudden appearance for the first time in her life. You slowly typed in your password, slowly brought up her diary you already had access to, and slowly logged into both your email and hers. Eventually, Ollie and Glenn steered her into her office to apparently give her some tips on how to deal with Malcolm Tucker, and you shared a not-so-convinced look with Terri.
Ollie still pissed his pants every time the spin doctor so much as glared at him.
A familiar fist knocked on the edge of your desk. Your head tilted up, trying to keep your smile polite, subtle. Not too bright, not too coy, or coquettish, or whatever you always felt you looked like when Malcolm looked at you like he already wanted to bend you over your desk. He liked your reading glasses. Liked slipping them up your nose when he was drilling into you and making you moan, liked leaving a lingering kiss where the leg met the skin at the back of your ear, liked when you sent him sexy photographs in only the glasses.
“Hi, Malcolm.” His gaze flickered from your eyes to the slightly smudged lip gloss on your mouth, and back up to your eyes so quickly you wouldn’t have noticed if you hadn’t been staring so intently at him.
“Morning, sweetheart.”
“Bad day?” He looked tense, tired, like he’d been run over by every new Minister getting a position today. Most likely, he couldn’t wait to be alone with you, even if only for five minutes. You couldn’t give him the chance. You had a date tonight, and you’d been very firm when you told him last week was the very last time.
You always said that. He never believed you. You never believed yourself.
“Worst day of my fucking life. And it’s had some very tough fucking competition working with these fuckwits.”
Your mouth wavered, a giggle threatening to erupt, but you held it back. You absolutely could not be caught giggling over Malcolm Tucker. Ollie was already convinced you were having some sort of secret affair because you were the only person Malcolm was ever nice to, and you couldn’t add any more fuel to the fire. Not when he was still seeing his little Tory girlfriend over in Defence, and he was always more than willing to share more secrets than was strictly necessary.
It was easier when he was dating Angela Heaney. At least you liked Angela.
“She just in there then?” he asked, nodding his head towards Nicola’s new office.
“Yeah. I think she’s a little scared of you. So, be nice.”
He smirked. You could tell he was slowly unbuttoning your white blouse with his eyes. “I’m always fucking nice.” As he turned away, he left you with a wink that would have had you melting to the floor if you weren’t already seated, and you watched him enter Nicola’s office, throw out Ollie and Glenn, and close the door behind them.
Most likely, to scare Nicola Murray absolutely shitless.
When he finally stormed out ten minutes later, typing quickly at his phone, he didn’t even look at you, but you felt your phone vibrate in your desk drawer. Your personal phone, not the work phone you kept on your desk for easy access. You slipped it out to scan the message just as Nicola called you, Terri, Ollie and Glenn to join her at her office door.
MALC: Store cupboard by shitey coffee machine, 5 minutes?
YOU: I’ll try.
You grabbed an empty file you easily filled with scrap paper when nobody was looking, just to make it look like you had to take it somewhere, and were the last to reach the small congregation outside of Nicola’s office. You all leaned closer to ask how the meeting went. From the look on her face, you could tell that Malcolm had said something truly mean to remind her that she was on the very bottom of the government food chain, and he was at the very, very top.
“It was all very positive. We sort of know where we all stand now. The PFI thing you know about – not a problem, Malcolm’s fine.” You really doubted that Malcolm was fine. That was not his fine face. That was his I’ve got a huge fucking problem to solve, and everybody is making it ten times harder face. “Second little thing I’ve just apprised Malcolm of is that my eleven-year-old daughter will be going to a private school.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Glenn muttered before he could hold it in, but it was what you were all thinking anyway. It was not a good look for the new Secretary of State. It was a bad look. A terrible, awful, career-ending look if she went ahead with it. Sending her daughter to private school was like admitting she thought state schools were full of bad kids with knives who set fire to the bins. Only the Royal Family could send their kids to private school and get away with it; everyone knew that.
You tried to hide your worry behind the file in your hands.
“It’s a personal issue. I’m not Education Secretary, so.”
“Nor will you be.”
“What he’s trying to say, Secretary of State,” you quickly butted in for Glenn’s sake, sending him a short glare to get his outburst in check. “Is that, respectfully, it’s a bit like political suicide. You really can’t do that.”
“Well, thank you both for your support. I was hoping there was another way around this.”
Terri shook her head. “Sorry, there is no way around it. It’s horrible. It’s a bit like Dover.” You all stared at her, eyebrows inching upwards. “You know, if you wanna go to France, you’ve got to go through it.”
Ollie and Terri argued a little about the logistics of getting to France before Nicola cut through them. Her hair had gotten more frizzy since you first met her. You hoped she carried a brush with her everywhere, or the press was going to really start picking on her. “I don’t want to go to fucking Dover or France! I just want my daughter to be happy at school.”
You slipped away while Ollie tried to slide into Nicola’s good books, muttering something about getting this document to the right department that everybody luckily ignored. You wouldn’t be missed for five minutes. Nobody would even notice you were missing. When you returned, Ollie would look at you like he just realised you hadn’t been there five minutes ago, but he wouldn’t question you. Everybody was always coming and going in the department, anyway.
In the store cupboard you shared with Tourism, next to the shitty coffee machine you always ignored, you kept your empty file clutched to your chest like a shield. It would barely hold Malcolm off, but you could try. You had to try. For the sake of your date with Dylan, a finance analyst for the Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs. You only looked up from the toes of your pinching black heels when Malcolm stepped through the door.
“Thank fuck.” He crossed the store cupboard in two, maybe three, steps. Close enough, you could feel his breath on your face. Close enough, you could feel the familiar heat of him. His hand reached for your waist instantly, an action you were both so used to that your body exhaled into it, almost letting him pull you closer.
You couldn’t.
You pressed your file to his chest to ward him off, and he froze. His finger tapped against your hip bone, but his face fell in that way you knew meant he hadn’t been clued into something he probably should have been.
“Malcolm, I – I can’t.”
“Can’t what, sweetheart? Because, from what I remember, you’re pretty fucking good at it.”
“No, I mean, I shouldn’t.” He groaned, head tilting back. He tugged you towards him anyway, close enough that your hips slotted against his, and your folder fell to the floor, scrap paper scattering around your feet. This had been a sort of game you played when you first started doing this. You always said you couldn’t, you shouldn’t do this anymore, and he’d always convince you otherwise.
You didn’t need much convincing, usually.
When his head tilted back into place, his nose bumped against yours. You didn’t move away. You probably should have. “I thought you were over this silly little game. It’s fun. Let me have my fun, alright? You’re the only thing keeping me sane in this poor excuse at recreating Broadmoor.” His other hand curled around the back of your neck, thumb carving a soothing pattern against your pulse point that always made you soak right through your underwear.
You pressed your hands against his chest, but he didn’t move away. He just froze, close enough to kiss, close enough you could smell the cigarette smoke on his tongue. He was supposed to quit.
It wasn’t easy to quit something that tasted so good. He knew that well enough.
“I’m going on a date tonight.” It wasn’t the first date you’d been on since you’d started regularly sleeping with Malcolm. It was the first time you’d told him. His hand fell away from your neck as his eyebrow twitched upwards. He looked… disappointed. “His name is Dylan. He’s a finance analyst for–”
“Defra. Yeah, I know the one.”
His other hand slid away, and your body went cold. Frozen in place by the way his eyes licked over you as he stepped back – just enough to feel out of the way. You hated how your body itched to be close to him again. You could never get addicted to cigarettes, not when your body was already battling another addiction you didn’t think you’d ever quit.
Malcolm Tucker was not an easy man to quit.
“He’s a bit old for you, no?”
Your scoff was cutting for you both. “You’re not really one to talk, Malcolm.” The spin doctor was nearing fifty, almost twice your age. At least Dylan was only thirty. That was within the realm of a reasonably-aged boyfriend that your parents would not be disappointed to see you with.
“So, that’s what this is about? I’m taking advantage of you–”
“No, Christ, that’s not what I said.”
Your head fell back until it rested on one of the metal shelves behind you. You could feel the tension rushing through Malcolm, the weird energy that accompanied him in every room, like his blood cells were made up of anger and sarcastic comments. Around you, he usually seemed to calm down enough. You were the only one who got to see the gooey inside he kept hidden, the softness of his lips against your temple, the kind of man who made you breakfast in bed after fucking you so well you’d almost received a noise complaint from his neighbours.
“I can’t go on a date tonight and spend the entire time thinking about fucking you. That’s not fair on him.”
Malcolm’s smirk made your stomach drop. It shouldn’t have been so easy for him to turn you on. “Helps me get through every tedious meeting around here.”
You shouldn’t have giggled. It shouldn’t have made you feel so good. It shouldn’t have given you a thrill to think about Malcolm sitting in a meeting with Ben Swain, or Julius Nicholson, or even the PM and have his mind filled with images of him fucking you. Of you on his desk with your legs spread and his head between your thighs. Of you bent over in the store cupboard in the old office, your fingers gripping a rickety table that creaked with your movements. Of you staring up at him with tears in your eyes as you tried to fit all of him into your mouth and he hit the back of your throat again, and again, and again.
“Well, maybe if the date is getting a little boring, I can let my mind run.”
He stepped closer. Closer, and closer, until you were crowded against the shelves, the metal rungs digging into your spine. His fingers ghosted your hips but settled just behind you, gripping the shelf full of paper clips, and staples, and shitty pens nobody used because you all liked using your own.
His breath was hot on your mouth.
“You gonna wait for a little kiss at the end of the night?” His nose nudged yours out of the way so his lips could very softly, very minutely touch yours. It wasn’t enough of a kiss to quench the sudden thirst flooding your mouth. You pressed up against him so you could reach for a proper kiss, but he was quick to hold his head out of the way.
You pouted, a little bit too bratty. You knew Malcolm liked it. You could feel his hardness pressing against your hip.
“Is that what you’re gonna do?” His whisper curved around your ear. A shiver rolled down your spine, and you moved closer, fingers digging into the inside of his elbows, hidden by his grey suit jacket. You could claw right through the fabric to latch onto him. “Press your perfect tits against him when he kisses you? Beg him to fuck you all quietly because you’ll never cum if you have to listen to that fucking Shrewsbury accent that drives everyone fucking nuts?”
“Malcolm,” you whined when you reached for his mouth again, and he pulled away. He got you all worked up, all hot and bothered, all twisted around his finger, and he was punishing you for trying to actually date. For not just wanting to be some office fuck toy for the most influential man in the government.
For accidentally falling in love with him when you really fucking shouldn’t have.
“No, no. You tell me first. Are you gonna be all whiny and bratty with Dylan from Defra?” You could tell already, by the way he said his name, that Malcolm was ready to make Dylan’s life hell from now on. One little slip-up, and he’d be out on the street with nothing but a placard around his neck calling him a posh twat. It shouldn’t have made you any wetter than you were. It did. “You gonna cum for him when he calls you a good girl? You gonna drip all over his house? Leave your fucking scent on every bit of fucking furniture he owns? Is that what you’re gonna do for this Dylan from Defra?”
“No. No, Malcolm. I don’t want–” You struggled to catch your breath, your heart hammering far too fast in your chest, your stomach twisting with want. Your hands travelled up to Malcolm’s shoulders to grip there, clenching around the grey fabric. “I don’t want to fuck him.”
“Then what do you want?”
“You.”
He was still smirking when he kissed you, clearly pleased with himself. It was all messy want and need in the way he crashed forward, caught your mouth with his own, sucked in the final breath you had waiting in your throat. Your teeth clashed, your saliva stringing between you, but you didn’t care how messy you looked, how flushed your cheeks were, how your pen fell to the floor, and your hair tumbled from its updo. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was that Malcolm was kissing you again, holding you against him, letting you feel how hard he was. He got turned on by turning you on. It was enough to make you whine and moan into his mouth, against his tongue.
Sometimes, Malcolm kissed you like he was afraid this was the last time. Sometimes, like he knew you’d always come crawling back.
He pulled back before it could turn into anything more. Before he could touch you where you were wettest, before you could wrap your hands around his cock and make him cum too soon. He tugged your bottom lip down with his thumb, his hand curled around your face, and you knew he liked what he saw. Liked that you were all flushed and panting and wanting him. Liked that he could make you completely drop the perfectly polite employee act with just his mouth.
“Let me know how the date goes.”
He slammed the door before you could call him back into your arms, his stomping footsteps echoing down the hall, and you knew somehow that you’d just made Nicola’s first day a hundred times harder for her.
↕ ↕ ↕ ↕ ↕ ↕ ↕ ↕ ↕ ↕
Nicola left for her first Cabinet Meeting at Number 10, and the rest of the office exhaled at once, as if it was just another normal day. You sat at your desk, taking calls to book meetings, interviews, fitting them into Nicola’s diary for later on in the week, for next week. You always tried to keep enough time between meetings for the Minister to grab a coffee and you to type up the minutes you usually handwrote during the meeting.
Just after lunch, once you’d finished your sandwich from the cafe down the street, a notification popped up on your screen. A new addition to Nicola’s diary you’d have to approve. You finished your coffee and threw it in the small bin that separated your desk from Terri’s, usually full of takeaway coffee cups and biscuit packets you shared. The Cabinet Meeting would be over by now, and most likely, she had another important meeting booked already. Maybe even a press release.
It was a request to book out the rest of the afternoon. For some photo ops with the Labour MP running in Leamington Spa, Liam Bentley. You could have asked Why Nicola? But you knew the answer already. Out of everyone, Malcolm chose her to go because he was pissed off at you. He was going to make her journey the two hours to Leamington Spa to stand and take some pictures with a man she probably barely knew, and somehow she’d end up looking like an idiot. And he was doing all this because of you.
Was he jealous?
No. That was stupid. Malcolm was not the type of man to be jealous, not over some silly date you had later. He could be mean, and he would probably be angry at you blowing him off, but he wouldn’t be jealous. He probably didn’t even like you that much. For him, it was probably all sex and nothing else. No matter how many times he had picked up when you called him crying. No matter how many times he had let you crash at his after staying too late at work because his house was closer and safer. No matter how many times he made sure that his shouting at the rest of the department did not mean you.
Malcolm Tucker was not going to be jealous.
You ignored those thoughts to get back to work. Ollie dropped off a shitty Tourism-machine coffee on your desk as you were on the phone to the private car company to book Nicola’s transport to Leamington Spa. Terri handed you a piece of gum when you started typing up a briefing pack for the trip, everything you could find on Liam Bentley, the recent polling in the constituency, the issues that constituents usually brought up and might attack Nicola with when she wasn’t expecting it. You found out who was going to be there from the press, and wrote down what she was allowed to say, and what she absolutely should avoid saying.
You’d gotten pretty good at collating briefing packs. It was part of your daily routine – usually. Every morning, you came in, double-checked the diary to make sure nothing had been added while you were gone, and put together a concise briefing of how the day would go. The meetings that were booked, who they were with, what they were supposed to talk about. The upcoming interviews, the tabloid that would try to exploit them, the things to absolutely avoid saying. That’s why today felt so weird. You hadn’t started it with your usual sit down, type up a briefing pack, print it out, and highlight.
You just finished your triple-check read-through when Glenn told you Nicola wanted to see you in her office. She waited until you sat down across from her and scraped your chair across the carpet before she leaned closer, hands clasped professionally in front of her. Her nails were clean and unpainted. You played with your red-painted thumbnail, already starting to chip.
“I’ve asked Ollie to come to Leamington Spa with me.”
You nodded, slowly. “Okay.” You didn’t really know why she was telling you. “There are three seats in the car, so I don’t need to book a different one. And, I’ve just finished your briefing pack, so you can read that on the way. There should be time. I’ve been told I’m very good at summarising.”
She nodded, too, a grateful smile flickering over her face. You could imagine the stressful day she’d had already, and she probably hadn’t been expecting this last-minute trip pushed upon her by Malcolm. Stress was already beginning to line the corners of her eyes. You felt very, very bad for every bitchy comment you and Terri had gleefully spilled in the elevator.
For two and a bit years, you’d been the Diary Manager for the Secretary of State at DoSAC. You were practically a glorified secretary, and there probably wasn’t much potential for upward progression in politics, but you were good at it. You dealt with last-minute appointments like they’d been there all week, your briefing packs were knowledgeable but compact, and you’d gotten very good at redirecting calls and emails that would probably just cause a headache. You’d also become pretty talented at reading the silent emotions of the Ministers who sat in front of you.
Nicola didn’t just look stressed by her new position and the unwelcome intrusion of Malcolm Tucker in her life. She looked pretty worried.
“Do you think it’s a good idea to take Ollie?”
“Just Ollie?” She nodded and immediately caught the hesitation that flickered across your face for a brief moment.
“You think it’s a bad idea.”
“Well, no. Not quite. It’s just…” You played with the small flower-shaped buttons that held together the cuffs of your blouse. “Look, Glenn’s been doing this job a lot longer than anybody I know. And, I know he can seem a bit doddering, but he’s good at it. He knows what he’s doing. He’s like… well, you know that really old dog that you have, always sleeping in front of the fire, always has weirdly crusty eyes? That’s Glenn. And every morning, he hobbles to the front door to pick up your newspaper. Do you know what I mean?”
Nicola didn’t really look like she understood, but she nodded, anyway. “And Ollie?”
“I live with Ollie.” Her eyebrows shot up, clearly not expecting that. “And, he’s probably my best friend, which is why I can say this without feeling too bad… he’s a selfish, back-stabbing rat who only really thinks of himself. But he’s smart, more up-to-date with his ideas, and more likely to come up with jokes for your speeches. They’re both important to this department, I think.”
Nicola hummed, eyes flicking away from you as she muttered something about having things to think about, and you took that as your dismissal. Most likely, all of you had been pulled into the office to be questioned about the others. You wondered who had been asked about you. You wondered what they had to say. You definitely were not going to ask – it would look beyond pathetic if you started flitting from desk to desk asking what they said.
The printer spat out your briefing pack with those weird creaking sounds it had been making for weeks, which IT still weren’t coming over to fix anytime soon. They’d wait until it broke completely, send over a specialist who was just an acne-ridden twenty-year-old, and they’d tell you to buy a new one. It was nice to know some things never changed around here. At your desk, you read through your fresh paper copy of the briefing document, highlighting the most important notes in one of the many yellow highlighters you kept in your top drawer. You never used any other colour of highlighter. You’d tried pink once, and Terri mumbled something about professionalism that had you binning it before the end of the day.
When you knocked on Nicola’s door, she was just adding the finishing touches to her makeup, and she threw you a bright grin over her shoulder. Maybe she actually liked you now. Or maybe, she really didn’t want to get rid of you and was trying to smooth out any tension that she might have caused earlier in the day. Either way, you tried to mirror it as best as you could.
“There’s the briefing pack. We’ll all be watching from this end, so we’ll let you know how it looks. Don’t you worry a bit, Minister, we’ll take good care of you around here.” Her smile turned from jarringly bright to genuine, a softening at the edges, and you could tell she struggled to get her thank you out through the bubble in her throat.
You just hoped all that emotion cleared by the time she and Ollie got to Leamington Spa.
The journey was around two hours. More than enough time for you, Terri and Glenn to escape outside for a smoke, grab Twixes from the cafeteria, and pretend to work while you waited for the right time to gather in front of the TV. Malcolm showed up around ten minutes before, quiet and sudden, his presence like a waiting wolf, feet dragging back and forth over the carpet as he paced. Not the jittery kind of pacing you were used to with Ollie. The thinking kind, the waiting kind. The kind of pacing that made other people anxious to see what was on the other end.
The office pulled over chairs to gather in front of the TV as soon as the news broadcast switched to Leamington Spa, and you perched on the arm of the uncomfortable blue couch people rarely used. Terri’s work phone started to ring. It was Ollie, waiting for clear instructions from your end, who could see how everything looked. Malcolm waited until the last possible second to join the rest of you, standing close enough you could feel his arm brush against your shoulder.
The tension hadn’t left him all day.
The news camera panned out, letting you see Ollie and Nicola in the corner of the screen where they weren’t supposed to be. You stifled an undignified snort when you noticed Ollie crouching in front of the Secretary of State as she, presumably, fixed her flyaway hairs in his little glasses.
“Why are you squatting down?” Terri asked over the phone. Most likely, Nicola should have taken Terri with her to Leamington Spa, too. At least, she would have made sure to stay out of the camera angle.
“There she is,” huffed Glenn, when Ollie finally got out of the way and let Nicola step into view. On the other side of you, Terri continued to argue with Ollie, who was still in shot even though he really should have ducked to stand nearer the press by now. God, she should have taken Glenn with her. Or literally anybody but Ollie, who somehow always managed to make a complete fool of himself when he was trying really hard not to.
Somehow, you just knew Ollie would make it to the very top of the governmental food chain.
Nicola took to the stage, all bright smiles and shaking hands, and she looked good up there in her black skirt suit. She was all confidence and personable attitude, and you turned to say to Malcolm, beside you, “She’s good with the people, isn’t she?” He didn’t even offer up a huff or his usual sarcastic smile to let you know he’d heard and was just ignoring you. He didn’t even look at you.
Glenn scoffed. “But then, so is Kate Thornton, and she’s wanted for war crimes.” You threw the political advisor a middle finger without looking at him, and though Malcolm had yet to speak, yet to move except to frown deeper, you could almost feel the smug smile that radiated from him.
“Mrs Murray,” shouted one of the press, tinny over the TV speakers. “Do you feel your husband's involvement in the PFI's prisons contract compromises your position?” Your spine straightened, and the entire room seemed to suck in a breath. It was important for her to be able to answer questions on the fly, where anybody could catch her and stand her ground, not to be caught out like Hugh and that goddamn Welsh woman from months ago.
“Well, I’m just here to support Liam Bentley.”
“You don’t think there’s a conflict of interest?”
“No – I really don’t.”
Terri pointed out how well Nicola seemed to be managing things on her end, staying strong, smiling, not backing down and giving in to the insufferable questions about her husband she clearly didn’t want to answer. Malcolm, once more, stayed quiet. You couldn’t help watching him. There was something wrong. A politician this steadfast, this headstrong, this able to answer questions thrown at her every which way should have at least gotten him to crack a subtle smile. Maybe even sit down and untense the muscles in his shoulders.
His face never cleared of the thunder etched into it.
He mumbled something to Terri about Nicola looking edgy, and she passed this on to Ollie, getting him to move her to the middle of the billboard. LIAM BENTLEY. By the time you caught onto the zoom in of the newscamera, it was too late. Glenn tried to get her to move, but Terri didn’t even notice until it was staring her right in the face. Their little mishap. Ollie’s little mishap. Malcolm’s mishap. Nicola was caught, and it would be all over social media, on YouTube, on every news platform in an hour.
I AM BENT.
“You tried,” Malcolm said to Glenn, who looked like he was seconds away from curling up into a ball and letting himself get kicked down the stairs. “You tried your best, mate.”
You were the only one who caught the hint of a smirk sticking to his lips.
He did it on purpose. He saw the sign, he had seen every possibility knocking around his head, and he got Nicola to move. He instrumented all of this because he was pissed off. Not just at you, not just at this day, but at her. For not listening to him. For not immediately choosing between her daughter’s education and her husband’s job. He’d orchestrated all of this just to show her what happened when Malcolm Tucker was not on your side.
You shot after him before you could convince yourself it was a bad idea.
“Stop walking so fast,” you snapped, so unlike yourself, trying to keep up with his long, fast strides. He froze, head slowly twisting towards you, his smile more sadistic than apologetic. He knew you were following him – of course, he knew. He was clued in to your footsteps just as much as you were clued in to his; every click-clack of your heels had the hair rising on the back of his neck and his shrivelled old heart quickening its beat.
“Shouldn’t you be in there making calls, trying to fix Ollie’s mistake?”
“Ollie’s mistake?” you echoed, and he could tell from the pinched tone of your voice that you were onto him. You’d always been far smarter than most of the office gave you credit for. But not him, he was well aware how amazing you were. He was well aware that it was more than just sex, but he was too old for love. You deserved to fall in love with someone like Dylan from Defra.
He didn’t want to let you go.
You crossed the corridor until you were standing close enough for your entire body to feel on edge. He always smelled good. Of coffee, and cigarettes, and the remnants of the aftershave he used in the morning. It was enough to make your knees weak. But you kept your spine straight, your eyes meeting his. You weren’t going to back down on this.
Nicola was your Minister to protect now.
“That was immature.” His eyebrows shot up, and you watched his usual satisfied, smug smile twist. You had never been scared to tease Malcolm, but this was different. This was you questioning him. Not just him, but the job he had been doing for decades. This was you, a meagre civil servant, questioning him, Director of Communications. You had no ground to stand on. Your stomach was rolling. “I know she’s not really listening to you, but Jesus, Malcolm, you embarrassed her.”
“She embarrassed herself.” Malcolm turned from you to continue towards the lift at the end of the corridor. You walked as close as your heels would allow, almost crowding him, wanting him to know you wouldn’t let this die just because he was done talking about it.
“She’s not stupid. She’ll know it was you.”
“She’s a bit stupid.”
“No, she’s not. You just don’t like her, and you’re going to make her look stupid to convince everyone else she’s bad at her job. You don’t give anyone enough time to impress you.”
He jabbed the button calling the lift. “How about you stick to your job, and I’ll stick to mine, eh, sweetheart?”
“Don’t fucking patronise me, Malcolm. Admit it. Admit this was all part of some sick plan to make Nicola look stupid because you’re trying to show her who the real boss is.” His jaw ticked. The lift got closer. “You hate it when anybody questions you. You want everybody to shit their pants as soon as you get close. You run this ship on fear alone. It’s not a sustainable business plan.”
The lift doors pinged open, and you were mirrored back to yourselves. You leaning close to Malcolm to dog him on, your hair starting to fall out of its updo, your cheeks flushed with the rather sudden confidence you felt. And Malcolm with his usual stormy expression. Except, you had seen that clenched jaw probably more than anybody else before.
You’d never shouted at Malcolm before.
You were pretty sure it turned him on and pissed him off all at the same time.
“Get in.”
Even though you hadn’t been planning to go anywhere, the dark hint in his voice had you shuffling inside the lift. He pressed the button to take you to the top floor, then let his eyes land on you. They drank you in from head to toe. Had you started trembling? Malcolm never spoke to you like you were the scum clinging to his shoe; he usually left that for Ollie, but this is what you expected it sounded like.
“Turn around.”
You did. You’d always been obedient; it’s one of the things Malcolm liked about you. You always did exactly what you were told, and rarely ever spoke back unless it went against some moral code. You sassed him sometimes, and you argued with Ollie because, after two years of living together, you were basically brother and sister. But you never, ever, went against him.
In the mirror, you watched Malcolm get closer. Close enough, you could feel his breath tickling your neck. You wanted to lean back into him, but you gripped the lift railing, watched your knuckles turn white instead of looking at him. Your skin already felt like it was burning just being in this small space with him, knowing he was so annoyed it was turning him on, knowing that no matter how much you argued with yourself, you would get on your knees for him every time.
“Did you like that? Get off on standing up for yourself?” He reached up to loosen your hair, pushing the pen into the top pocket of his blazer while your hair tumbled free again. Messier now. He freed it when it tried to get caught in the collar of your white shirt – generous even when he was slotting his knee between your thighs.
“No,” your whisper shook. It still felt too loud. “I’m not like you. I don’t get turned on shouting at people.”
“You should. You look fucking sexy doing it.”
Your head fell back on his shoulder, giving him clear access to trail his teeth across your neck. He knew exactly where you liked to be kissed, that your pulse point was the one place he could elicit a moan from you, even when you were trying to be quiet. He bit, then licked a soothing stripe against your heartbeat.
“Keep your eyes open.”
You watched him in the mirror. Watched as one hand curled around the railing next to yours, pinky wrapping around yours, a soft undercurrent to his harsh tone. You watched as his other hand snaked down your thigh and tugged up your skirt until it was bunched around your waist. His fingers found you over the thin fabric of your tights, and you were already wet, already starting to soak through your underwear. He hissed lowly. It rattled in your ears.
“Do you like being right all the time? Is that what gets you so wet?”
His hand slid under the waistline of your tights, tugged your underwear to the side, and sank deep inside you. Your gasp, moan, whatever strangled noise came tearing out of you fogged up the mirror in front of you, and you were sure you heard Malcolm laugh. But, honestly, with all the blood rushing to the top of your body, you didn’t trust any of your senses. Just his fingers inside of you, just his lips on your neck, just him crowding you against that mirror while the lift climbed higher.
“I like when–” Your breath caught. He was so good at this that it made you mad. You could never think straight with Malcolm’s fingers reaching that spot inside of you that made your toes curl. You knew it wouldn’t take long to make you cum. He knew that too. “You admit I’m right.” His bark of laughter was followed by a sharp pinch of your clit. “Malcolm!” you squeaked, and you wanted so badly to squeeze your eyes shut so you wouldn’t have to watch anymore. Wouldn’t have to see your cheeks turning red, the pleasure gleaming on your face. Wouldn’t have to see how much he was enjoying himself.
You couldn’t close your eyes. You had to watch.
Two fingers moved inside of you, his thumb circling your clit, his lips mouthing at your neck. Your pleasure rolled like a wave closer and closer; you could feel the water lapping around your trembling knees, beginning to touch the pads of your fingers. Just as your head tipped back, just as it started to crash over your body, Malcolm pulled away. You were frozen, your body still twitching, still chasing a high that was never going to come, still chasing fingers that were being shoved into your mouth to clean before he went to another meeting.
Malcolm fixed your skirt back into place.
“Get your date to finish the job.”
When the doors pinged open on the ground floor, Malcolm stormed out after pressing the button to send you back up to DoSAC. And you were stuck there, gripping the railing to keep you upright, staring at yourself in the mirror, your hair a mess, your forehead slick with a sheer layer of sweat, your chest heaving with breaths that couldn’t quite settle.
You needed fresh air. You needed a smoke. You needed not to sit in your chair, knickers soaked all the way through, and listen to Terri and Glenn run around the office trying to fix everything.
You needed Malcolm, and he clearly wasn’t in the mood to be nice to you today.
↕ ↕ ↕ ↕ ↕ ↕ ↕ ↕ ↕ ↕
Nicola was over all the newspapers. Front page. Her and that stupid sign, and there really wasn’t anything more you could do to fix it. You’d already called everyone Terri told you to call, but it was a surprisingly slow news day, and there was nothing better than catching a politician just at the right moment. So, the rest of your afternoon was filled with trying to stop the department from falling apart at the seams.
When Ollie started pacing, fearing his job was well and truly done for, you sent him out to buy coffee so he could at least feel useful. When Nicola started having a panic attack, you used your old therapist’s words to help calm her down. When Terri and Glenn started screaming at each other across the office, you were the one who stepped between them and kept them from physically starting to fight.
By the time five o’clock started rolling around, you weren’t really in the mood to go and socialise with a stranger anymore. But you didn’t have much of a choice. The table was booked, your date was meeting you outside at half past, and you had even told Ollie just to stay at Emma’s tonight. You had no excuse now.
In the tiny, shitty bathroom by the staircase, you swapped your white blouse and grey pencil skirt for your favourite date outfit. You rolled sheer tights up your legs, barely even a layer against the early Spring chill, and tried not to focus on how sticky you felt. Goddamn, Malcolm. You’d be thinking about that bloody lift all night now, and you’d never be able to focus on what Dylan was saying. You slipped into your mid-thigh black skirt with the short slit, sexy enough to catch his attention and keep it there, and tugged on the tight red top with the sheer layer that was supposed to give it a unique look and the three-quarter sleeves. You shoved your work clothes into the plastic Asda bag you’d brought your date outfit in, slid into your knee-high black boots, and rechecked your makeup in the mirror. Perfect winged eyeliner, red lipstick to match the top, and you’d messed up your hair enough that you thought you looked a little like a Vogue model.
Even if your date didn’t like it, you knew someone who would.
God. You had to stop thinking about Malcolm like that. You had to put an end to it. You wanted real dates, and romance, and all the things he wouldn’t be able to give you because no way in hell would Malcolm Tucker be caught dating a civil servant. The press would have a field day, and you’d be flayed to use as his sacrificial flag.
Your work heels dangled from your fingers as you slipped into the office, hoping everyone would have gone home already. But you caught the last remnants of Glenn’s argument with the recycling centre over his £600 chair, and knew you could never be so lucky. Imagine, huh? Imagine if life could just go your way for once.
A whistle rang around the office as you finally stepped into view. What you really wanted was to just get to your desk, hide your heels in the bottom drawer where you usually kept them – opting always to wear trainers on the way to and from work – and get out of there before anyone saw you. Ollie, of course, could not have that.
“You put in all this effort for some prick from Defra?” he asked, nodding to the shortness of your skirt.
You flicked him a middle finger. “Don’t start, Oliver. You’d be lucky if your girlfriend owned a skirt this short.” You heard him mumble something akin to I wish as you passed his desk, your heels still swinging from one hand, your Asda bag in the other. You almost froze, almost tripped over your own feet, when you noticed that Glenn wasn’t alone at his desk. There was a very smug Scot perched on the edge of it, stopped in his whispering by your sudden appearance.
His gaze fell onto the hem of the skirt, sitting about halfway on the thick flesh of your thigh, and stuck there.
“Oh, it is rather short. You’ll be careful, won’t you?”
You crossed the office to hide your stuff in the bottom drawer of your desk. “Yes, Terri, I’ll be careful.” You didn’t really know what she meant, but you could tell her concern was genuine. Probably just asking you to watch out on the tube for creeps. She was always telling you how unsafe it was if you were alone.
“Are you meeting him there?”
“No, Glenn. He’s meeting me outside.”
“Outside here?”
“Yes.”
“Does he have a car, or are you walking?”
“Jesus, what is this? The fucking Nuremberg Trials?” You finally stood after locking your desk’s bottom drawer, fixing your sternest glare onto your workmates. It rarely worked. You never had enough heat in your eyes to convince them you were actually mad. You watched their mouths twist, amusement lining their features, and knew you failed.
Ollie pointed his pen at you, but his attention was solely on Malcolm. “She’s going on a date. Hot one, apparently, by the length of her skirt. Dylan from Defra.” He said it like it was something to be ashamed of. You’d never heard anything bad about the people who worked for environmental affairs, but you were starting to think that maybe you were just left out of the loop.
“I’ll walk you out.” Everyone’s eyebrows raised as Malcolm pushed himself off the edge of Glenn’s desk. You weren’t expecting it. Your workmates were obviously expecting more ribbing, more of a chance to make fun of your outfit and your date. But Malcolm just calmly crossed the office to pluck your black coat from the coatrack in the corner and hold it out to you. “Don’t want to be late, do you?”
Your fingers grazed his as you took the coat.
You didn’t want to go on a date with Dylan from Defra. You wanted Malcolm to call a taxi and take you back to his house, lavish you in homemade food he was surprisingly good at cooking, and let you stay the night. He wouldn’t. He was going to let you go on this date, and then by Monday, you’d be on your knees begging for him to be more. You knew he’d never be more. You were always getting your hopes up for a man who could never want you past what he could take from you. Not when it could ruin his reputation. Not when his job was on the line.
You had no idea Malcolm struggled every day not to blurt out I Love You. It had been far too long since he last uttered those words, and the thought of saying them to you, some civil servant half his age who probably only ever saw him as a way to relieve herself of stress, made him nauseous.
“Do I still need to go to Emma’s?”
“No, Ollie.” You slung your leather handbag over your shoulder. “Don’t worry about that. Just go home and feed Grandpa, okay?”
“I’m not feeding your cat.”
You ignored your housemate to follow Malcolm down the corridor. Ollie would feed Grandpa. He always did because, as he was loath to admit, the grumpy, old, grey cat had grown on him. You never had to worry about that. Instead, you now had to worry about another elevator ride with Malcolm, stuck thinking about the last time, stuck having to go on a date with a man you really didn’t want to.
You were the one who reached for the button, this time. You could feel Malcolm watching your every move, every swish of your hair, every shine of the sallow office lights on your glowing skin.
The lift ride down to the ground floor was silent, filled only with your trembling breath trying to catch a grip. You stood close enough to fully lean against each other if you wanted to, but instead, you kept your hands on the railing, his pinky finger crossed over yours. The only touch he would allow himself. You were all dolled up for another man. He had to respect that.
The doors squeaked open, and Malcolm went to move first, to give you the space to meet your date all alone, without his presence to sour the mood, to poison your first impression. You deserved better than him, anyway. You deserved someone who could love you without years of not believing in it.
Even if it did hurt him to walk away.
He stopped at the lift doors, long enough to look back at you and say, “You look beautiful. Make sure he tells you that.” He left, and your heart ached to follow him.
You didn’t.