I was plain and knew it. Didn't need anyone to tell me. Make-up and nice clothes were wasted on me, created a caricature, a laughable parody of sensuality. So usually - and wisely - I didn't bother. However, this day was a special day, a day when I had to try my best to look my best and thus open myself to ridicule.

I approached the desk with justifiable trepidation. The tweedy receptionist smiled patronisingly at my bleached hair, caked lashes, and rouged lips, while laughing internally at my cheap blouse straining to subdue my over-sized tits. And I knew she'd be shaking her head at my mini-skirted fat arse and too-high heels as I following her pointing finger and clomped lift-wards. Well, fuck you, bitch, I thought, fuck you, though behind my sneer there cowered the shy, plump little girl who'd never even been kissed.

The lift doors pinged and closed slowly behind me. Smoky mirrors taunted me. Averted eyes insulted me. Twenty floors nearer to Heaven, Hell awaited. A five-headed bespectacled and besuited Hell, wielding slashing pens and posing withering answerless questions. I tugged my knickers from the crack of my arse, adjusted my groaning bra then breathed deeply and stepped into the fray.

The monster bade me sit. Its glassy eyes devoured me; its many mouths curled in hungry incredulity.

'So...' Papers rustled, 'Miss...' 

My solitary chair's creak barely masked my churning stomach's growl.

'Hughes.'

'Ah, yes. Hughes.'

The greying man in the middle had a kindly smile, yet it was also a smile that quite blatantly said, fuck these faceless four, for I make the decisions here. Despite their mainly cosmetic purpose, the faceless four somehow maintained their supercilious self-importance. I babbled.

'Susan Hughes. I'm seventeen. Just finished my stage one secretarial. I've always wanted to work...'

A slowly raised palm silenced me. I deflated.

'Quite. We'll come to your, er, ample qualifications shortly, er, Susan. Mr Jackson,' he coughed, turned to his left and raised an eyebrow at one of the faceless four, 'would you like to...'

A siren. The siren. Everyone expected it. No one expected it. Open mouths and pasty faces. For long moments, nobody moved.

'Is that?'

'Oh,God!'

'It is!'

'What the fuck do we do?'

Scrabbling hands extricated phones. Shaking fingers stabbed. A host of terrified expletives followed. Were they stupid? Didn't they watch the news? Communication systems are always the first to go. I sat on my hands, rocked to and fro, my lips curled in morbid amusement. This room is the last I shall ever share, these faces the last I shall ever see. We are equals now. No amount of money or status makes a jot of difference. Death simply doesn't give a fuck.

'Fuck?'

I stood. Tore open my new blouse - its pristine presence was pointless now - and jiggled my cantilevered tits at them. Greyhair bellowed.

'Sit down!'

For the merest moment, I wavered, but it was only a moment. I had three minutes. We all had three minutes. What possible sanction could sway me from my course? It was a concept my young flexible mind grasped instantly. Their blinkered crinkly brains would take a little longer.

Since the start of the Irish Missile Crisis, the news had been full of what to do. Hourly public information films were similarly, ridiculously, overly optimistic. Stay indoors. Close the curtains. Huddle under the table. Cover your eyes. Don't drink the rainwater. Social media had been equally awash, yet the advice there was more pragmatic: you are about to die a horrible death, so fuck. Simply fuck. And don't waste words. There won't be time for social niceties or polite pleasantries. Just get your tits out and throw yourself at whomever is nearest. Squeeze a final few moments' pleasure from your fragile flesh before the burning winds turn it to ash. 'Protect and survive!' was the official line. 'Go out with a bang!' was the unofficial advice and I had determined to follow the latter to the letter, to be deflowered while the mushrooms rained.

The faceless four were crying. Pacing. Ranting. Tearing at their clothes and hair. Falling to their knees. Sobbing and squealing like pigs before slaughter. Amid the tumult, Greyhair and I were still, our eyes calmly fixed together, our brief futures slowly melding into an inexorable singularity.

Making a mockery of his slight, hunched frame and thinning curly locks, he athletically leapt the desk, grabbed my bleached hair and forced our mouths together. Before our tongues had even touched, I had his trousers open and my hand in his pants. Frantic fingers fumbled with my pliant boobs and I felt him pulse within my squeezing palm. He tossed his glasses into the corner, flung off his jacket then paused and gently implored.

'Please suck my... my cock, Susan. Please!' Steely blue eyes melted as I smiled and nodded my acquiescence. Silver tears streaked his cheeks. 'Since Mary died, I've never... never...'

I pressed a finger to his lips.

'Shush. What's your name?'

He whimpered, his corporate confidence cowering beneath the constantly blaring horn.

'Greg. I'm Greg.'

'I'm gonna suck your cock, Greg, and then you're gonna fuck me. You'll be my first...' I snorted a gentle ironic laugh, 'My last...'

My rounded knees hit the plush carpet.

His expensively-tailored trousers quickly followed. He was soft, the skin wrinkled, yet he quickly grew in the breathy warmth of my loving gaze. Once, twice, I tugged on him then glanced upwards as I licked then parted my lips. Eyes wide in urgent expectation, he thrust his hips forwards till his curved pink appendage pierced my face. I'd never even seen a cock, let alone sucked one, yet his groans told me my instincts were serving me well. It was my last supper, the final feast of my short life. After an initial salty tang, his meat was bland, tasteless, like a warm pliant pebble. While turning the gold band on his third finger, Greg mouthed silent words and stroked my cheek, then, without warning, he grabbed my hair and violently fucked my mouth. Spit splattered his thighs, flesh battered the back of my throat, and still the sirens screamed. Incoming death! Incoming death!

'Strip!'

Almost before his final plosive had punched my ears, I was on my feet and tearing off my blouse and bra. My pendulous tits bounced before his disbelieving stare. A zip ripped and my tiny skirt hit the deck. Lacy purple panties quickly followed. Only high heels and stockings remained. Nodding his mute appreciation, Greg kicked off his shoes and lost his nether garments. I helped him with his shirt, slid down his tie, and he was naked. For precious seconds we simply hugged, while all around us the faceless four frantically cursed and punched doors, walls and floors.

'God, you're beautiful.'

Greg's words cut through the din. I shook my head, but he nodded in earnest reiteration. I whispered.

'Thank you.'

As we kissed, he eased me onto the floor and lay between my parted legs. A guiding hand wetted him with my oozing fluids. His body pressed into mine and a new alarm assailed me. Pain. A pain so intense it had to stop, yet the unique circumstance bade me surrender to it, submerge myself in it.

We moved together, my plump young body rippling in contrary motion to his forceful thrusts. The carpet burned my back, a pallid harbinger of things to come, and I momentarily tried and failed to imagine the impending firestorm. His mouth found my tits in turn, clinging steadfastly to their gently swaying oscillations. With his weight shared between his knees and extended left arm, he reached down with his right and pressed his thumb firmly to my clit. Pleasure surged through me. His final words filled my head.

'Cum with me, Susan. I'm so close, baby.'

I cried out so all the world would hear.

'Don't stop, Greg. Don't stop fucking me. Oh, yes... nearly there!'

Searing heat. Shattering glass. A whirling maelstrom. Curtains billowed and blazed, blew outwards through the empty frames. Outwards. Away from the epicentre of the explosion. I boiled and burned, crusted and caramelised, glowed and flowed, became one with the blackened Earth.

Silence. My ears rang with it, my pulsing blood a pounding accompaniment. A distant whine rose and fell. Jackson punched the air.

'It's the all clear! The fucking all clear!'

The faceless four clung together, sobbing their gratitude to a multitude of absent deities, then split into twos, slapping backs, laughing manically and breathing deeply. As one, they suddenly glanced floorwards, to where their naked boss was frozen in postcoitus with their almost naked teenage interviewee. Their initial amusement suitably subdued, they respectfully turned their backs. Cellulitic flesh on full and carefree display, I tip-toed between them to retrieve my oversize knickers, my impossible invisibility raising paradoxical lumps at their groins that gainsaid their limp small-talk. Throughout our search for carelessly discarded clothes, Greg and I exchanged growing knowing looks. He reverentially offered me my bra. I lovingly extended his Y-fronts and he used their zebra cloth to dab dribbles from my thighs before coyly slipping them on. Finally tucking in my blouse, I strode to the door, a parting wink accompanying my parting words.

'Call me.'

He nodded, a warm smile creasing his kind old face as he tugged up his crumpled trousers.

'I will, Susan. I certainly will.'

In the cool reflectivity of the descending lift, and in the absence of Greg's controlling rod, fission expanded unabated within me. The old Susan split, fragmented, incinerated and decayed. Pathetic passivity was subsumed. I was energised, vitalised, primed. I steamed. I simmered. I shone.

Exiting the lift, I caught the security guard nervously zipping up. He was bald, broad and black, and discarded any ephemeral embarrassment with a shrug and a wry smile. Meanwhile, the tweedy receptionist hastily buttoned her blouse then smoothed her greying hair, while her wan smile, smeared lips and flushed cheeks continued to proclaim that - bomb or no bomb - the world had indeed turned upside-down. Creditably, she quickly regained her composure, speaking politely though curtly.

'May I help you?'

As I paused imperiously before her, she became confused, visibly perturbed by my newborn power, and frantically searched my eyes for its shimmering source. I perused her name-badge while patting the back of her quivering bony hand.

'I'll see you Monday, Sandra - well, if the world doesn't end first.'

*****