The Dominant Male

of her vision, where it shouldn’t be – it was open! In a flash she looked up to see Martin, her smooth-but-casual boss, standing before her, his hands on his hips, with an expression at once candid and quizzical, and a smile which became a leer as he caught Becky’s eye. The bastard seemed utterly self-possessed!
    Becky could not hold his gaze in the moment of silence that followed, during which her heart crashed through the floor and her cheeks ran hot as if Martin had not only caught her wanking but had read her shameful thoughts as well. She pictured herself as Martin must see her - her improvised tit clamps betraying her filthy, fiendish mind and her ripped hose her wantonness. For the first time she noticed how sweaty she had become, too. No doubt in vain, she closed her hand around the highlighter pen.
    To make matters worse, Becky and Martin had shared a fumbling kiss about six months before at a drunken office party. Nothing had been said, and she suspected they both thought of it as a bit of misadventure. He should not have been there! A gentleman would have slid back out of the room as soon as he was aware someone was in there, let alone giving himself the opportunity to discern what they were up to!
    And all the time Martin’s face was fixed with an ‘I’ve got you’ grin. When he spoke, his tone betrayed no excitement, no great sense of surprise. He could have been commenting on the weather: ‘You’ll forgive me, I’m sure, Rebecca…’ How long could he have been there? Long enough for his brain to have absorbed, processed – and perhaps savoured – what she was doing? Or was he always so cool? She had no idea when the door had actually swung open, either ‘…for the voyeurism you seem to have forced upon me. Entirely accidental. I just slipped in to rinse my fingers. With the state of that door, I couldn’t avoid you, could I? I’m something of a victim, don’t you think? After all, a lesser man could be traumatized!’
    Ha…hang on… thought Becky. She wanted to protest, knew that when it came to thinking critically, what he was saying was crap. But she couldn’t say why with any great alacrity, so quickly had he assumed a monopoly of truth. Besides, he must have known that she would know that to say anything about this to anyone else might reflect more on her than him. He had, after all, simply entered the bathroom. According to him, he couldn’t have helped but see her. He, the esteemed editor of Deviant , a ten-year employee of the company whom other journos called for a quote on this or that Zeitgeist phenomenon, and her, the odd Californian of no particular provenance who’d been there a year. He was right – he hadn’t done anything directly to cause her embarrassment. If anything, fingers would be pointed at the building-management company for their inadequate facilities.
    He had disarmed her first instinct – to throw some fruity American invective his way, and her second instinct was to reflect that her embarrassment wasn’t after all wholly down to him, not that he had made the slightest effort or gesture to minimize it. Nor did it look like he was about to!
    And hadn’t she always wanted a well-spoken Brit to take her in hand and impart to her some of that English reserve?
    By now, he must have wholly realized that his was the position of strength, because his attitude changed from damage-limitation to one of turning things to his further advantage: ‘I’ll say one thing for you, Rebecca - you’re an inventive little minx. Let’s have a word in my office when you’ve… erm… composed yourself.’ And with that, he turned away and was through the door. Becky felt as if she really did have ‘slut’ scrawled onto her tits.
    Becky stayed in the cubicle a while longer, her fearful encounter with Martin having encouraged her to use it for its intended purpose. Her mind was a welter of mixed feelings - on the one hand, her job at the magazine would never be quite the same, if she was allowed to keep it. And even if she was, she should chance it and move on anyway. And perhaps her evening with Jim would be a hurried mess now. What if Martin made her stay?
    On the other hand, she felt like a naughty schoolgirl at one of those exclusive private places, waiting outside the headmaster’s study, and it excited her. If she weren’t such a slave to her paranoia she might have admitted that Martin’s expression betrayed excitement too. Hell, the bastard was probably