Lust, Actually — A Making Movies Preview

Lauren usually loved the firm’s Christmas bash. The food was good, the drinks were flowing, and her fellow employees cut loose — even the notoriously uptight CEO Jillian.

And the previous two years, once everyone had gotten thoroughly plowed, she’d dragged Ray off, and they’d indulged in a particularly sweaty, particularly spectacular fuck.

The first time, two years before, they’d started making out in the hallway outside the bathrooms, when Glynna, the firm’s controller, had stepped out, rolled her eyes at them and snarked, as always, “Get a fucking room.”

And so, giggling, they had done just that: they’d snuck into Jillian’s office. There, Ray had pressed her face-first into the boss’s whiteboard, lifted the back of her dress, and fucked her until they were both screaming.

Last year had been even better. They’d managed to break into the board room, screwing with gleeful abandon on the big, glossy table before sneaking back into the party, no one the wiser.

That is, until the executive committee meeting the next day, when the board secretary had found Ray’s boxers floating in the ice bucket behind the bar. There hadn’t been any way to identify whose undies they were (though Ray swore there were some forensic tools he’d have been able to use). Still, the higher-ups at the firm had been Not Pleased.

And so this year, the invites had been very explicit: no significant others — no spouses, no family, no boyfriends or girlfriends. Which was fine. But still. No Ray.

Leaning against the entrance with a half-empty glass of bourbon chilling her fingers (how many had she had so far?), Lauren stared glumly at her co-workers, all of whom seemed to be having a grand old time. Jillian and John, the office manager, were dancing a jig on a table to much clapping and hooting.

Lauren wanted to be dancing. With Ray. Horizontally.

In front of all of these cheering people, her legs wrapped —

As she lifted the glass to her lips, someone sidled up behind her and a smoky voice whispered, “You know, Wishnowski, if you want someone to take the edge off those glass cutters, I’m happy to help.”

Great. “Thanks, Glynna,” Lauren sighed, crossing her arms in front of her chest and spilling whiskey on her blouse. “Sadly, you lack a dick, and even more sadly, you’re not my husband.”

The bookkeeper snorted. “Fucking newlywed.”

“Hey, don’t knock it if you haven’t tried it.”

“Yeah, no. Like being single. Like finding another lady every night.”

Now it was Lauren’s turn to snort. Glynna certainly seemed to be make the most of being unattached. “Fair enough. But you’re going to need to find someone other than me.”

“Even if I get you a refill?”

“Won’t matter how drunk you get me, Glynna. I’m straight. I’m married. I’m sure Breanna would be happy for your attentions.” Lauren gestured with her glass at one of the company’s youngest employees, sloshing more whiskey where it wouldn’t do any good.

“Sweet Breanna is nice, but I’ve already partaken.”

“Slut.”

Glynna winked. “Says Lauren Wishkowski.”

“Hey! I don’t sleep around.”

“Yeah, but having almost walked in on you and Wonder Cop so many times, I know you love sex.”

That was true, and the thought made Lauren pout. “What do you think — would anyone miss me if I slipped out?”

“Going to go and ravish the Man in Blue?”

“Abso-fucking-lutely.” Lauren handed her glass to Glynna. “I’m leaving to go fuck my man. Have fun.”

“Oh, I will.”

“Ta-ta,” said Lauren, delivering a smooch to the bookkeeper’s cheek. “Give my best to Sweet Breanna.”

“Give my best to the husband!”

As surreptitiously as she could, Lauren wove her way to the exit.

---

Really, Lauren knew she shouldn’t drive while drunk. A DUI wasn’t a laughing matter, and Ray would be his stoic, disapproving self. But she’d had the car, and hadn’t wanted to leave it, and mostly… Lauren wanted to get home now.

She managed to arrive at the front of her and Ray’s building intact, all body parts still connected, so she figured she could wait to yell at herself about doing something stupid until tomorrow.

For tonight…

For tonight, she wanted her husband inside of her, his mouth on hers… Walking up the stairs, she realized she didn’t want to wait to drag him into the bedroom. Wherever she found him, she’d tear off his clothes and…

Throwing open the front door, she was about to howl out his name, but she saw him, sitting in the living room…

With Chandra. Sitting with Chandra. Watching a movie.

Right.

Fuck.

He’d told her he’d invited Chandra over to watch some… movie. Because Lauren’s best friend for once had a break in her doctoral studies. So they were watching…

Some fucking holiday movie. And Lauren’s sexy-pants husband and her dingbat best friend were both blinking up at Lauren, Lauren standing there with her glass cutters on full display, her panties humid, her mouth thick — with passion as much as alcohol. “Hi.”

“Lauren!” Chandra tottered over, throwing her arms around Lauren. “You look as if you can’t decide whether you’re very hot or very cold.”

“‘Bout right,” grunted Lauren, staring at her husband, who was licking his lips.

“Also,” mused Chandra, “you smell like you’ve had rather a lot of whiskey.”

“Have.”

Chandra led Lauren into her own living room. “Come along. We’re watching a very confusing film.”

“Confusing?” Lauren looked over at her husband.

He shrugged. “Party let out early?”

Pouting again, she toddled over and plopped herself in his lap. “Wasn’t as much fun without you.”

“I bet.” She could feel the smirk in his kiss.

Turning and leaning against him, figuring this was the best she could hope for — Chandra was too sweet and lonely to kick out, though Lauren was sorely tempted — she turned to see what they were watching…

And was shocked — shocked! — to find, paused on the screen, the two pastiest people she’d ever seen, completely naked, expressions bland, but bodies locked in just the kind of embrace she’d been visualizing for herself and Ray. “Are you…?” She turned and glared at her husband. “Are you watching a porno with my best friend?!”

“What’s a porno?” asked Chandra as she rag-dolled into the sofa beside them.

When her husband just gawked at their friend, Lauren snarled, “It’s a fucking film where fucking people fuck.”

“Oh,” said Chandra, sounding at most mildly interested.

“This isn’t a porno,” chuckled Ray.

Lauren simply raised an eyebrow and pointed at the screen.

“They’re… I guess they’re called stand-ins or something? They’re… I don’t know. But they’re not actually screwing. It’s actually a very sweet love scene.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Come on. Watch with us.” And he turned the movie back on.

It was sweet. It was also, as Chandra had said, confusing. There were dozens of characters in more overlapping but seemingly unconnected relationships than Lauren’s whiskey- and lust-fogged brain could unlock. The boffing couple who weren’t really boffing. A man and his son. Another man — who looked strangely like Snape from the Harry Potter movies — apparently contemplating an affair with his secretary?

“This is a Christmas movie?” she whispered.

“Apparently,” Ray whispered back. “Keep watching.”

So on they watched.

All the while, Lauren was squirming in her husband’s lap, trying not to start grinding against his crotch.

As an Englishman and a woman — Mexican? Brazilian? — started chasing a bunch of manuscript pages into a pond, Lauren looked over at Chandra, who was munching on banana chips, chocolate brown eyes wide and completely focussed on the movie.

A perverse impulse roared through Lauren, and — drunk and horny as she was — who was she to deny it? So she didn’t.

She let her knees float outside her husband’s, pressing her crotch down against his. Then she began to rock. Minutely, but enough that she knew she’d stoke his fire and hers.

They’d dry humped early in their relationship, but not for years. The idea of grinding her husband in their own living room fully clothed might have struck Lauren as ridiculous the night before, but tonight it set her booze-thinned blood boiling. While Chandra lounged, obliviously watching the film and nibbling at her snacks, Lauren leaned forward slightly so that her pussy now pressed directly — well, through her undies and her skirt — against the rapidly growing lump at the front of Ray’s jeans.

He hissed, and she shot him a grin over her shoulder. He had his stoic cop face on — nothing to see here, move along — but she could tell she was getting to him.

As was so often true in their sex lives, Ray’s restraint, his self-control, spurred Lauren on. She continued the back-and-forth slide of her crotch against his, but began to add a side-to-side rock, so that now she was gyrating minutely against him, and it felt…

It felt glorious. Fucking fabulous. And knowing Chandra was right there…

Ray’s long fingers closed around Lauren’s waist. At first she was worried he might try to still her, but no, he wasn’t guiding — his hands followed her pelvis’s dance as it moved against his.

Her clit and nipples buzzed.

Damn. Why hadn’t she tried this before?