She Keeps Me Warm

10

Carmilla's head began to hurt with the amount of times she banged it against her desk. She thought coming to the office to avoid swallowing Laura Hollis whole was her best bet. Where she failed was deciding to call her sister. Of course, Mattie would be no help to her. Why would she think any differently?

"You are such a conundrum. It is perplexing!" Mattie cackled in her seat, placing her cup of what Carmilla was sure was secretly coffee but masked on the outside as tea on the desk. "You want the little gidgit to like you, so you antagonize her for months! Then you blurt out you're marrying her to thwart the intentions of Sir Axe-a Lot. And now that she tells you her true feelings, you run like a lost puppy into the confines of your office and my strapping arms."

"Strapping?" The CEO tilted her head slightly off the cool wood, barely able to see her sister's still giggling face from behind the steaming cup of what she was certain now was coffee. "You can barely lift a finger for anything except your next drink."

"At least if a girl told me how she felt about me and clearly drooled over my tight pencil skirt, as the Hollis Harpy does for you, I would be able to lift my finger for more than just grabbing my keys and walking out the door to run to my sister in fear."

"And I shall be leaving now." Carmilla snatched her keys in haste. The quicker she was away from this, the better she would feel.

"Running again?" Mattie chuckled.

"Yup." She threw her leather jacket over her shoulders. "Laura Hollis spouting her feelings, I can handle. Your joking, I cannot."

The confines of this office once made her comfortable. She put her touch on it, gave it the old Carmilla charm. The chair was her solace away from the comforts of her living room couch. The desk was brand new, chestnut, and yet to be christened by sweaty palms against its surface while equally sweating legs wrapped themselves around her torso as she made the poor woman remember who it was that had blessed her with such luxuries. The walls were painted gray, probably her favorite color next to black. This room was clean. It was pure of empty sex, pure of her need to have someone under her touch. Now that she had spent so much time in it wishing for a particular someone to come in and shed it of its innocence, to drain it of its grayness and fill it with a burning red, it was harder to focus. If she so much as attempted to get important work done after Laura's last visit to her office she may as well as shred the documents, bash the computer to pieces, and scribble 'hopeless' across her forehead so that it may sink deep into her brain and marinate.

It didn't help that Mattie's joking was unbearable in what she could only describe as one of her biggest moments of weakness. It was harder than it may have looked to walk out of her house and retreat into Mattie's strapping arms after Laura's behavior this morning. The way she watched her during her meetings, how her eyes may as well have undressed her, it drove Carmilla mad. Making with the plans of a meal and conversation was all she could focus on afterwards, less she march down those stairs and show Laura what it meant to undress with the eyes. Even then, her home office had yet to be touched, but Laura's presence there was loud. Laura's presence was loud everywhere. Here, home, the street. Laura was everywhere. She would never behave herself if she didn't find a place to breathe. Somewhere, anywhere, where Hollis didn't fill the room like a lit candle.

"Mircalla, sit." Mattie's tone was no longer playful, it was the same as it was when Carmilla came home and refused to do her homework or her chores, full of authority and power. It was easy to follow instructions when that voice made her feel 15 again. It shook her when she sat down in her swivel chair without a rebellious thought in her mind. She had to blink to bring herself back to the present. She was not a teenager anymore. She was a CEO. Get it together. It didn't faze Mattie at all, used to getting what she wants. She took a sip from her cup, clearing her throat. "Why are you so unnerved? Isn't this what you wanted?"