I used to love Christmas parties in my previous job working at an office. Those were my kind of people: down-to-earth, chatty, witty. The Christmas party was just one of the many excuses to get together, get shit-faced, giggle and dance through the night.

Now, I’m a freelancer and on top of having to do my own taxes and pay my own pension, I really do miss those work dos.

So, I decided that unlike many previous years I will go to my husband’s. I knew it wouldn’t be anything close to the parties I was used to. Hubby warned me that most of his colleagues are pretty stuck up and it will be more like a formal ball than a drunken fest. But he likes free drinks and as his mum was staying with us for three weeks in the Christmas period, we didn’t have to worry about babysitters. I thought it would be fun playing his picture-perfect, sophisticated wife just this once.

The venue, the decorations, the meal and dress code were all so showy and pretentious, they left very little doubt that I had absolutely nothing in common with this crowd. Think sixteen-foot Christmas tree, that you can’t even see from the head-sized baubles and giant, tacky, glittery bows. Maybe the company did make six-seven figures a year, but in my eyes, their pride and joy was still just a well-dressed, dull and dusty factory.

I knew only a handful of people: my husband’s bosses and a few couples who lived in our neighbourhood.

“How are the boys?” I asked Sarah, whose twin boys went to the same school as our son. It took quite an effort not to sound too bored-off-my-head. Then, of course, we started talking about kids which was the last fucking thing I wanted to talk about.

With the rest of them, it was even worse. “How terribly cold the weather’s been...” “Have you finished wrapping presents yet?” For some reason, they all felt the need to boast about the new, trendy toys they bought for their offspring. Was I a bit smug when I replied that my kids are too old for gifts and are getting experiences instead? Maybe. I’m not too popular at parties. Not these kinds of parties anyway.

I couldn’t even drink much as I didn’t want to embarrass my dear prestigious husband. He was seemingly having a good time having some banter with his workmates. I didn’t want to nag him to go home just yet, but I was starting to realise that coming here was a bad idea. Even watching Disney with the kids at home would have been better than this.

Trying to pass time, at some point I was standing by the punch bowl, absentmindedly trying to scoop out the last remaining clementine slices, when I felt a shadow emerging over me. When I turned around my heart stopped for a few seconds as a very familiar face greeted me “Hi, Kat.”

I stared straight at him blushing because for the life of me I couldn’t quite place his handsome face.

“You don’t remember me, do you?” he asked with a devilish smirk.

“I...I do, just ...”

“Mmm, do you?” he probed again, his voice like the soft rumble of distant thunderstorms. He narrowed his eyes wolfishly and bit the inside of his lips, seemingly rolling that tiny bit of flesh between his canines.

“Fuck.”

Like fast rewinding an old video tape, all the memories come flooding my tipsy, woolly brain. Series of overwhelmingly carnal images flash in front of my eyes: his strong hold on my wrists, around my neck, his possessive rough kisses, the taste of his fingers in my mouth, the same gnarly voice as he told me to get on my knees...

How could I have forgotten that voice?

...Looking up to him with eyes pleading for more...

Then I catch myself staring at him the same way and I swallow hard.

“I see you do, indeed,” he grins jubilantly. His soft whisper of “Good girl” spins my head 360 degrees. I have to grab onto the side of the buffet table for support, almost pulling off the fancy gold-laced red tablecloth, as my legs seem to suddenly turn to jelly.

“Please what?” he questions revelling in my discomfort. I have heard that request before... That night, when he made me beg for his cock. My body burns with shame as I recall how he made me lick his shaft through thick denim, how he gave me a playful slap across my cheek for leaving a wet patch. Holding my hair in his strong grip, he had me spend agonising minutes that seemed like hours, just licking his deliciously smooth balls until I was out of my head with dripping need. Watering at my mouth, I remember how huge he is and how he made me gag and choke on him and how fucking much I loved it. That flashback floods much more than just my brain.

All of that filth is so out of place here. As if it never happened or only happened in a distant previous life. Or as if it wasn’t even me, just some very dirty, very kinky porn clip I watched(= masturbated to weeks on end till all the fine details burned into my memory).

“Please what?” he prods on, waking me from my trance. His voice and the predatory look in his eyes assure me that we’ve just been down the same memory lane. Why am I the only one with knees this weak? Why does he think that any of this is ok?

“Not here,” is my curt, barely audible reply. This should never ever ever ever have happened! Trying to distract myself, my eyes seek out my husband, but he has his back turned towards us and he’s busy chatting to some office whores.

Mr Trouble from my murky other life (yeah, I’m terrible with names) grabs me by the arm, and, sensing my urge to flee, he tells me in a no-nonsense voice, “In fifteen minutes, by the elevator, second floor.”

“Wait...What? No.”

“I like it when your vocabulary is reduced to one-word sentences,” he smirks then walks away, leaving me with a mind split in half: one screaming at me that I must not, the other one flashing a self-assured sneer knowing sure as hell that I will.

Without thinking, I fill my glass to the brim with the first kind of alcohol I can find and leave the room. After this little accrochage, I can’t possibly stomach another humdrum tea-table talk. My simple intention is to go up to the roof terrace of the hotel and clear my head. But I find myself pressing the elevator button for the second floor. My blood is burning me from the inside like an underground lava flow. I just can’t stop the flashbacks running through my feverish mind.

The layout of every floor is the same, there is a small, windowed sitting area by the elevator. It looks like a nice, quiet spot to try to sort out my head. As I sip my drink and watch my slightly distorted image in the brushed steel mirror of the elevator door, another clear image invades my mind: him bending me over the bed and unhooking my bedroom mirror from the wall to place it against the bedboard in front of me. That angle, my hair all tangled and stringy like the onryō girl from The ring as he grabs a fistful, revealing my lust distorted face. He loved watching my expression as he roughly pulled on my nipples.

“You fucking love pain, don’t you?” he asked my reflection, not expecting a reply from the bewildered beast spinning off her axis, fingering me into that special corner between heaven and hell. Who am I kidding, I’d kill to have another night like that. What am I doing here pretending that I’m Miss Goody Two Shoes?

I barely hear the chime of the elevator going off, but when he steps next to me, I instinctively rise. For a minute or two, or maybe five we don’t say a word, just stare at each other.

“This should have never ever happened,” I state clearly breaking the silence. “That’s a different life...I...I--”

“Well, I think someone has a little explaining to do...”

The elevator dings again and my husband steps out. He extends his hand to my not-strictly-unwelcome companion, “Richard.”

Oh, that’s what his name is.

Again, for a few minutes, none of us knows what to say. Eventually, Richard breaks the ice. “She never comes to the Christmas parties," he addresses my husband in a somewhat surprised voice.

I’m standing right here, but sure, continue talking about me as if I wasn’t. But just to let you know it’s bringing back memories and kinda turning me on.

“Neither do you,” Quinn raises an eyebrow at him with disapproval. A look I very rarely see on his mellow face.

“Yeah, they are normally boring as fuck. But this one just suddenly turned quite promising.”

“Do not even think about it,” I hiss at him, drifting closer to hubby for support. “This is not the time and place! I have to keep this show white angelic facade on.”

“It doesn’t suit you,” Richard remarks drumming his fingers on his folded arms.

“Stop flirting,” I shoot back which prompts my husband to laugh into his beer can.

Richard tells us with a self-assured smirk that he “doesn’t want to hold us up, or god forbid tarnish the image of the lady” but gives us his room number, "just in case we change our mind".

As soon as he’s out of earshot, I question Quinn how could this possibly happen when our first and absolutely unbreakable rule was that we never ever play with people we know. Especially not with people from work.

Well, I’m not gonna bore you with those details. And whatever else happened that night, that’s between Richard, hubby, me, and room 228.