I'm being silly, I know. I move around the table and know, as I move, that her gum is stuck to the back of the seat. I haven't imagined anything. Stupid and banal to imagine that I imagined anything. I stand and then crouch in front of it. The chewing gum is pink like the inside of a seashell, like the belly of a crustacean, like I am afraid to acknowledge the folds of skin one would expect to meet between Clair's legs. Bright pink gum squashed circular, her thumb impression left like evidence. I can't explain the effect this has upon me, just as I cannot remember ever feeling so compromised. It is ridiculous and yet I am compromised. Of course it is terrible, leaving gum stuck to the back of a chair in the company boardroom. It is terrible she did it, terrible she saw me watch her, terrible that the fact of my watching did nothing to deter her. And yet. The pink chewing gum stares at me like a rebuke. It occurs to me that I should have spoken at the time (as if the time is already historical despite the fact that it couldn't be more than three or four minutes ago). Why didn't I say something? What does that mean? What did Clair see in me? What do others see in me? What is in me that I do not see? I can't say that I noticed Clair chewing gum during the course of the meeting. She must have been chewing but I didn't notice. Perhaps everybody noticed but me. Perhaps it was agreed. Perhaps Clair was told to bring the gum to the attention of the person who paid the least attention. Do I not pay attention? I think harder. Did I not even look at Clair during the course of the meeting? I can imagine her mouth. Or a mouth, at any rate. Thin lips. Thin lips with the suggestion of fullness. I think about the gum in her mouth, all warm, and the gum and the mouth and the tongue and maybe her hands in my hair as her tongue explores my mouth and my hands on her all coalesce with the nausea that tends to accompany jerky travel.
The gum is moist to the touch. Using the same fingers Clair did - the thumb and index finger of my right hand - I pinch the sweet prawn of gum and remove it from the chair. I am done looking. The gum enters my mouth (and is cooler than expected, is hypothermic, in need of resuscitation, but retains flavour, sweetness, a hint of Clair's mouth and the effect that has, this gum that has been in her mouth and now mine).
*
I'm chewing. I consider walking by her cubicle (a bubble of gum emerging from my mouth, popping as I pass, her shock returned, service met, match point) but don't. Instead, I deposit my papers, the notes made during the meeting, on the right hand corner of my desk and return back the way I have just come, passing the meeting room and making for the toilet. I enter a stall and lock the door after me, pinching the nub end of my cock through my trousers before the door is even locked to. I unfasten my belt, drop my trousers to the floor and crouch (as I crouched before her gum, not ten minutes since now) hard. I cup the toilet bowl with my thighs, the way I would cup Clair if I were taking her from behind. I close my eyes and think about her. I think about her at her desk, oblivious. I think about her on the phone. I think about her responding to email. I think about her joking with Stu yesterday, how she made him laugh, how he laughed like Ray Liotta. I think about her chewing the gum. I think about her jaw working chewing the gum.
I think about the gum.
I'm thinking about the gum.
