The Christmas Exhibition (17 page)

             
“Jill,” came a deep male voice from behind.

             
She released my hand, spun and confronted Jim. “Yes, sweetie?”

             
My loins were littered with jealous cogs, turning and twisting as control and dominance were acquiesced as sacrificial lambs to her flirtatious, sexual persuasion.

             
“Too bad you're not getting up there yourself, Jill, or I might've asked you for a dance,” Jim said, smiling and no doubt recalling a memory he probably assumed I had no knowledge of.

             
George was standing nearby, watching and grinning.

             
“It could happen,” Jill said, pointing the toe of her boot to him.

             
Jim's eyes were fixed on her legs, traversing from her knees to her thighs. The disappointment of denial was etched on his face when he reached her red miniskirt. “I'm afraid not for me. My wife's outside. She's picking me up.” He looked to me, laughing. “I have to be good.”

             
I nodded, then scratched my head under the Santa hat.

             
“Aw, sweetie,” Jill began, placing her palm on the side of his face and diligently drumming her fingertips on his skin.

             
Jim's face immediately reddened.

             
George's eyes lit up behind him with expectation. With promise. With allure.

             
The walls of my chest tightened. Anger and anxiety bit and spat ferociously at arousal. Jealous flames were fanned only by my restricted disposition.

             
Non-discreetly, Sean fixed his genitals in his trousers.

             
“Merry Christmas, Jim,” Jill said, then stood on her tip toes and kissed him gently on his cheek. “And a happy new year.”

             
“Yes, yes.” He was in seventh heaven. “Yes, you too.”

             
I was steeped in internal mystery, caught by confusion and wrestled with intrigue, as under my trousers, in the depths of my boxer shorts, my cock responded to her activity. Straightening and strengthening. Longing and lengthening. My need was for her. To have her. To watch her. The mystique crowded my thoughts. What was so exciting about watching Jill behave so promiscuously in front of all these men?

             
She retreated to her heels, smacking the floor as she dropped from her toes. Her eyes were stunning, playing on her beauty and torturing the alcohol-addled minds of every man in the room. “Oh my God,” Jill declared suddenly, as
Beyonce's Naughty Girl
broke out and shook hips into a bump and a grind only feet away. “Hold this.”

             
Her cup of wine was placed swiftly in my free palm.

             
She raced to join the others.

             
The apprentice made to bolt away for his escape. Sharon snagged his arm in hers. The prey was secure. His fate was sealed.

             
Jim was dizzy as he staggered towards the door which led downstairs, his expression twisting from embarrassment to astonishment as he snapped his neck to one side to watch Jill shake her ass between Nici and Tracey in the middle of the floor. He burped, said “Fuck,” and promptly left.

             
My eyes darted between Sean and George, readying myself for the consequences if either made a beeline for my girlfriend. I knew her mood. I knew her alcohol intake. She would reject the advances of neither.

             
Sharon spun the apprentice, shoving him gently towards Jill. My girlfriend laughed, then danced around him, moving her body in motion with the music.

             
The labourers heckled him, mocking his timid demeanour.

             
Jill just smiled. Smiled, swayed her ass and sashayed across the floor.

             
The young apprentice was frozen on the spot, shaken only when Sharon physically seized him and brought him around, pushing gently on his jaw until he retracted his lower lip and tongue.

             
The laughter was contagious, enveloping the room and dragging eyes stealthily to Jill's sexy form. Her dance was exotic and compelling, her legs moving in time with the music and her miniskirt threatening to rewrite the rules of physics as every step and stretch somehow thwarted every man's attempts to sneak a peek at her underwear. Her blonde hair swung in several directions. Her boot heels scratched the surface of the floor. Her waist bent. Her back arched. Her ass danced dangerously closer to the edge of her skirt. She snapped suddenly into a vertical position, winked at me and continued her dancing, shaking her booty simultaneously with Tracey's.

             
I watched George. He had whispered something into the ear of another of the labourers. Laughter ensued. He noticed my attention, relented his staring at Jill and lifted another tin of
Harp
for himself from the floor.

             
I cast my eyes back to the dance floor, and across to the other side of the room. Sean was different to George. His modus operandi wasn't to challenge Jill's loyalty in front of the crowd. He wasn't looking for the kicks of his peers. Nor to relish their cheers. He wanted Jill on his own. Alone. Vulnerable.

             
I was overcome with the urge to escort Jill out of the building. She was surrounded by men who were downing more drink with each passing minute. She was dancing, whether with deliberate intent or not, provocatively. The boss wasn't around. All the behaviour of the previous week was looking likelier to repeat with each motion her torso twirled in unison with
Beyonce's
seductive song.

             
Sean stared at her. His hand over his crotch.

             
Jill vanquished my vanity as her form volleyed fireworks of outrageous lustfulness. Her lithe shape careered gently in one direction, squeezing her cleavage together, then snapped to another, rotating her ass as sweat and perspiration poured from every male member of the crowd.

             
There was a sudden squeak and a shrill. Tracey was a blur of red hair as she crashed forwards to the floor. Sharon immediately discarded of the apprentice, sending him spinning into a printer covered in tinsel. She and Nici raced to Tracey's side.

             
I set Jill's wine and my beer on the nearest desk, then rushed over to help.

             
“I'm okay,” Tracey was insisting, slurring her words. “Honestly.”

             
“Check her head, Nici,” Sharon barked.

             
Christmas lights flashed above us, reflecting on the skin of Tracey's face. Her eyes were hazy. Shadows were cast suddenly as several of the men raced to assist. Some stumbled. Some argued. Opinions were offered. Opinions were ignored. It quickly became a case of too many cooks spoiling the broth.

             
Tracey was pulled to her feet, staggering slightly and whimpering. Billy and another labourer offered to carry her.

             
Nici and Sharon were adamant that they would be the ones to help her.

             
The crowd quickly dispersed and the
Beyonce
song faded to silence.

             
I turned to where Jill had been dancing, preparing to insist that the time to leave was obviously upon us. But she was gone. I looked to where we had stood together. She wasn't there either.

             
George was supping his beer, surveying the terror that had crossed my face.

             
I swivelled one-hundred and eighty degrees.

             
Sean had disappeared too.

8

“And so we've ordered the box sets of the first three seasons of
24
for Christmas, we're going to watch them over the holidays, maybe have a few drinks in the house, and hopefully by not going out and spending money in the pub we'll be better off come the New Year.”

             
The young labourer's words bounced around inside my head, shirking sense and embracing the chaos reigning supreme. Jill was nowhere to be seen. Neither was Sean. Sweat perused every part of my body. Blood pumped rapidly through my every vein. I was torn between temptation to doubt and duty to steel. To maintain my ailing trust. To steer my mind away from the gutter. To place in Jill that which she had given to me. To calm my qualms. To silence my fears. To shatter the quaking, breaking terror which was swallowing and possessing every part of my soul.

             
“Have you seen Jill?” I said finally, interrupting the labourer's ongoing love for the heroic
Jack Bauer
.

             
“I'm bleeding!” Tracey wailed in the background, commencing a drama I chose to ignore.

             
“Yeah,” he said. “She's right there.” He was pointing over my shoulder.

             
I spun around. “Where?”

             
“She was just there, dancing, last I checked.”

             
I cursed his quip. Where was she? What was she doing? My eyes searched the office for signs. For clues. For any indication whatsoever of their whereabouts. Every minute that passed without her, and without Sean, was a minute my dread bolstered to new horrific, unscalable heights. What if all the trust I had tried to place in her was smashed to smithereens? My jealousy would never retreat. My angst never rest. Control and dominance would be juggled from her hands to mine, and forever back to hers again. I could not live in the shadows of her promiscuity.

             
George drummed his fingers on his tin of beer. His eyes flicked from me to where Jill had been dancing in the middle of the floor. Back to me. His lips curled. A grin. A sly, salacious grin. His eyes strayed once more. Across the floor. Between the crowd. And to where Sean had last stood in conversation with his colleagues. His absence was as defining as Jill's.

             
I
would not
live in the shadows of her promiscuity. I
would
not
watch as her flirtatious nature evolved into an adulterous need.

             
Do you think it's possible to want to fuck someone you don't even like?

             
I
would not
allow my inaction to contribute to her illicit sexual proclivity. I had to find her. And fast.

             
Tracey cried over the music, shaking as if she had barely survived an assassination attempt.

             
I was slapped suddenly on my back. “Are you all right there, Matt?” asked Billy, cradling a tin of lager against his chest. “Can I get you another drink?”

             
I shook my head, although my instincts were to drown my sorrows. “No thanks. Have you seen Jill?” I asked, cursing the unforgiving fact that I was drawing attention to her disappearance.

             
Billy looked around. “I didn't realise she wasn't here, mate. She must've slipped outside for a smoke.”

             
Of course! And who else had cigarettes? Sean.

             
“You sure you won't have another drink?”

             
“No, really-”

             
“Have another drink,” Billy insisted. “Dave, grab Matt another beer!”

             
Dave nodded, and tugged a tin free from one of the dozens of six-pack rings.

             
“Biff Tannen!” someone shouted loudly to a response of hysterical laugher and applause.

             
Dave tossed Billy the beer.

             
Tracey's tears and torment roared behind us.

             
Billy caught the beer in hand, pulled the ring pull and slapped it into my palm. “There you go, kid, get that down your neck.”

             
Were they all working together to conceal whatever was occurring between Sean and Jill? Surely it was my imagination. Their laughter. Their smiles. Their falseness festered. The festive spirit lost upon me. Was there really a camaraderie to their conspiracy?

             
“What do you think of our party then, Matt?” Billy demanded.

             
I shrugged my shoulders. “It's not bad.” I poured more beer down my throat.

             
Billy was shaking his head, then his eyes were drawn to Nici's swaying ass as she walked past with a cup of water for Tracey.